Official Denon AVP-A1HD/AVP-A1HDCI and POA-A1HD/POA-A1HDCI owners thread. - Page 733

Yes. All this and more in the helpful links and such post #2 of the Pro kit thread.

I'd really like to own one of these capable AVP beasts! 8,000 is above my league though. I'd be happy with a used machine. Any idea what the price would likely be? Now that I read the upgrade-manual, I am suffering from the want-it-fever...

Would it be a bad idea to settle for two Emotiva XPA-5 for amplification, since their 200 Watt/ch is more than enough for the 95dB sensitive speakers I am building (only the center is 90 dB). I the weight is anything to go by: the 2 Emo's weigh as much together as the Denon 10ch amp. So I am guessing the combined power supplies of the XPA's are more than capable enough.

Would have been nice to have 10.2 (L+R Wide + Height and 1 back surround as in the original 10.2 setup) but alaas... I'd settle for Wides.

Welcome think your the person from belgium to join our club.

The current price in nl/be now seems to be 8999 euro, without the update. That is list for these items you don't normally pay list. Last time i talked to denon they told me about 15 units where shipped in our country and the 3d/xt32 update is 1200 euro. They didn't want to tell me if the 15 is with or without demo units. So i don't expect there are many units in belgium and your best bet for finding a used one is probably germany. I would talk to a few shops that have them in their showroom and make a bid on their showroom model.

The xpa-5 are great value amps, for single channel mode you probably will get 95% of the value of the poa. There are a few differences biggest is that you don't have the option to bridge like you can with th POA and use the 5 channels in fully balanced mode. The POA can be bridged into 4ohms and that demands a very stable power setup since the amp will than 'see' 2ohms speakers with dips even lower.

Having 1 back channel is a very bad idea and at this level of system never done. It can result in sound effects that should be heard from the front now coming from the back (psychoacoustical front/back reversal effect) for this reason most surround people strongly advice against doing it if you really want you can use 1 power channel and feed 2 speakers a mono signal at least 2 meters apart.

Daniel from the north.

PS: I just noticed i am on avs for 10 years !, Getting old . Is there no free cake or something mods ?

Congratulations Daniel I think they send you an AVS shirt and cap.

Well, they must have forgotten to send me mine .

one week on I have watched a few movies and given the system a bit a of work out and absolutely thrilled with what this upgrade has brought. as a few others have said over on avs, the audyssey xt32, and processing upgrade has brought a whole new lease of life to the avp. I wouldnt have thought it possible things could get any better, but watching lord of the rings extended edition, fellow ship of the ring part one. I was just in awe. I was watching only -20db and combined with the epson 9000 pj overall its such a cinematic experience the likes of which I dont think ever had on my system. the scale the detail, dynamics, spacious sound stage and the enveloping surround sound staging. reference material and an absolute treat ! thrilled to absolute bits !

monday am going to drop audio products a line, in thanks of the professionalism the upgrade was handled not just by them but by the local service centre as well. and some feedback how beneficial it has been. and that in all that especially given the scale of the upgrade the unit has come through absolutely fault free, bug free and in that way exceeded my expectations.

That's no good

Good to hear alebonau

Quit stalling, get the upgrade and you can submit a post like Al.

Well im waiting for your review also Wabo. Im curious to read your thoughts.

I'm living vicariously thru you big shooters.

Ha! the modest one has spoken. Wabo is the biggest shooter of them all. I think the first to do upgrade but didnt advertise it.

Hoy Daniel,

8,000 is the price I saw on Dutch webshop, but I presume it was without the update. I bought a camera on a German webshop last year for peanuts, but somehow I don't think a 50% reduction is going to happen that way... My best bet is used. The reputation of the AVP is simply to strong on the internet. It's the B&W 800D of the AVR/pre-pro sector... My Jamo R909 pair however was only 3,300 (10K new list) and they were 2.5 years old. I'd jump at an occasion of 3,300 for a used AVP! But I will browse the German forums. One is sure to pop up sooner or later.

Those Jamo's are powered by two XPA-1 because they can take it. But the HT speakers will be 95dB, so these need far less power (even 100 Watt would cover all the needs, but the center can use 200 Watt). In any case, with the AVP I can only do 9 channels, so I am good with 2 XPA-5 there. Chris from Audyssey claims 1 single back surround is 90% as good as 2 for all but the largest rooms. But he would say that, wouldn't he?

Edit: A Polish person sold an AVP on eBay a few days ago for 3,800 incl transport within EU. Interesting! I will start saving then.

So the webshop was not showing list price, makes sense i guess you should be able to get them lower if you ask me but you need to visit a 'A' status dealer and ask thats why i hinted to demo units. But the 3800 euro number sound like a very good start.

On the amps, no doubt the xpa's will do fine. I just pointed out the difference compared to the POA. But a POA is 8999 euro list and thats about 8x the price of the 2 xpa's.

Not sure what to say about the 1 back speaker, The common rule i heard was that its not a good idea and the effect is real and you can find several research papers on the topic. I can't see how audyssey would 'solve' this problem with our ears not being able to locate sound coming directly from the back of our head.

Daniel.

That's one thing I forgot to mention in relation to the XT32 upgrade, mostly because I thought it could have been my room change being responsible, but I've also found that I don't have to turn it up as loud to get the same level of dynamics.

Same here. I'm VERY pleased with the upgrade - it's well worth the money.

Same here!

I'm glad you guys all agree that it is worth the cost but more importantly, it seems to be a significant boost in sound quality and a relatively simple and bug-free process. I was going to hold off for a while but I plan to take mine in when I am done with my room addition in a couple of months. New room addition $$$$, new 3D projector & screen $$$, new speakers $$$, AVP upgrade $, new furniture $$ - Well, there goes the budget.

"Significant" is a risky word at this level, as we all know when everything already sounds great, "significant" comes in smaller doses.

I really wish I could have heard XT32 (Pro) in my previous room to get a better feel for how significant this is. I just find it amazing to get any improvement moving to what I know is a less acoustically sound room.

There's another negative to my situation that I might be able to deal with and garner even better results. My new room has a much higher ambient noise factor from the outside, living in the city, (not downtown, but not far from it), there's significant traffic and general neighborhood noises in play. I had to cancel half a dozen measurements and restart them when I calibrated even on a Sunday morning. To get a quieter backdrop I'm going to have to do a late night or very early a.m. calibration.

Still, I'm happy enough that I can wait till I get a chance to add some treatments in the room and finalize the set up to do it.

While I do not have the Denon AVP-A1HD, I feel like my Denon 5308CI is just a step below this unit. I noticed that on the Retrevo web site it lists both our units as being over the hill with respect to technology. I am pleased that we are both able to upgrade our units. That should help to keep them competitive for the near future. I just delivered my unit this morning to Adam's Electronic in Huntington Beach, CA. They had a upgrade kit in stock. So I am hoping they will turn it around in a day. I had debated wether or not go for the upgrade. I decided that since Denon will most likely not offer another flagship AVR in the near future that it makes sense to keep what I have. I have really enjoyed it up to this point and expect the Aud x32 to be worth the investment. I don't see any future improvements other than 4k that will make this unit obsolete. And even then for a while I could just bypass the 5308CI and go direct to the screen. But that is at least 4 years out there. So I would rather have an up to date system between now and then. The build quality on the 5308CI is high and makes it a keeper. I wonder how many people will upgrade their units? Is there a way we can keep count? I have always been less than satisfied with how the system deals with multiple subs. So the new upgrade should provide an improvement that I can hear. So excited.... man there was a lot of dust and hair from our two Great Pyrs. I gotta figure out a way to keep everything spotless. As soon as you put a fan in place it sucks all the crap into the console.
Manny

Yeah, the way it deals with multiple subs is cool, not only do you have much higher filter resolution but it also has a level match feature you run prior to calibration. This ensures it won't get into those + or - 12db (maxed out) situations which can cause problems among other things.

About three weeks after the upgrade my AVP lost output on all channels. Microprocessor resets and reloading settings did not help. It is back in the shop for diagnosis and repair. I suspect that it is a random failure since all worked well after the upgrade for the first several weeks. Has anybody else suffered total loss of output, and, if so, do you know what failed?

That's the first time I've heard of anyone with a problem like that. Please be sure come back and to let us know what it ended up being.

yeah sounds like a random failure of sorts, as per rnr do be sure to post back on what was issue causing failure ?

I'm confused, (after the AVP upgrade), as to what channels I should be using for my rear speakers in a 5.1 system.
I'm currently using the Surround R and Left channels for my rear surround sound but wondering whether I should be using the Back Surround right and left speaker positions?
My understanding is the back surround speakers are mono and if I used these I'd be losing the 'stereo' aspect for my rear surround speakers?
Before the upgrade I used the surround A position channels happily, but with all the talk on the forum about losing the surround A channels as part of the upgrade, (I presume to allow the front height speakers), I'm not sure now whether these channels should still be used for the rear surround sound.
As above, I am currently using these channels and they sound pretty good but I want to make sure I'm getting the best out of my AVP after the upgrade.
Can other forum members set me straight please?

The Surround B channels are the ones that are lost (and replaced by the height / width options) after the upgrade. For a 5.1 system continue to hook things up just as you did prior to the upgrade. Surround Rear should only be used if you're already using the regular surround channels (a for 7.1 system, for example).

To Anybody,

Does the upgrade include HDMI 1.4? If so, then it should handle 4K resolution.

Unfortunatley, just having HDMI 1.4 doesn't guarantee 4K support (see the FAQ). In their infinite wisdom in trying to confuse everyone as much as possible, many of the new features added to HDMI 1.4 are optional.

It was listed in the upgrade manual as HDMI 1.4a to process 3D. I thought HDMI 1.4 was good for ethernet as well as high def signal. So not sure about 1.4a