Official Denon AVP-A1HD/AVP-A1HDCI and POA-A1HD/POA-A1HDCI owners thread. - Page 808

Exactly. The removal of old technology like s-video is big and the components required to support it.

Sure, the natural progession of technologies.

I think audio has sort of hit the wall in terms of any significant audible gains to be had, the reproduction technologies have advanced beyond of our physical ability to hear the differences for the most part. That could be why the focus has shifted to what happens in the listening environment with things like room correction, treatments and speaker performance. It's where the bigger swings in audible changes really occur.

Compared to the 4520 yes the removing of amps gave them room to do more with the analog parts and they did. Compared to the AVP not so much since that also uses the biggest box denon had and filled it up the digital parts are relatively small most is analog and power related. Keep in mind the size of the AVP is 1.4x the 8801 and 2x the weight to begin with.

Daniel.

Could that be the fully balanced section freeing up space? Does the 8801 have an equal power supply section and isolation? If not that's another sppace saver. I know it does have the HDAM for all channels and same DSP. For sure eliminating the S-Video saves space.

The 8801 doesn't have fully balanced designed a la the AVP.

Specifications comparison of AVP-A1HDCI & AV-8801
AV-8801
Analog
S/N Ratio 105dB
Freq. Response (Analog In) 10Hz - 100kHz (+/- 3 dB)
Distortion: 0.005 % (20 Hz - 20 kHz) (DIRECT mode)
Digital
Total harmonic distortion — 0.008 % (1 kHz, at 0 dB)
S/N ratio — 102 dB
Dynamic range — 100 dB

AVP-A1HDCI
Analog
S/N Ratio 102dB
Freq. Response (Analog In) 10Hz - 100kHz (+/- 3 dB)
Distortion: 0.005 % (20 Hz - 20 kHz) (DIRECT mode)
Digital
Total harmonic distortion — 0.005% (1 kHz, at 0 dB)
S/N ratio — 102 dB
Dynamic Range - 110dB

True but all four of my McIntosh amps do not have balanced inputs.
FYI zero noise at all levels can put ear up to speaker and hear nothing. Also all components .005% THD UD9004 .008% THD
Edited by dahlgren - 1/7/13 at 6:56pm

What Macs are you using that don't have balanced ins? All my Mac amps are balanced and that's how I connect to the AVP.

2ea MC 7106 Six-Channel Power Amplifier (bridged mono to front, center, surrounds)
(2 ch to height)
1ea MC 7270 Stereo Power Amplifier (bridged mono to sub)
2nd sub powered
1ea MC 7100 Stereo Power Amplifier (back)

Tannoy Defininition DC8T (front)
Tannoy Definition DC8 (surround)
Tannoy Definition DC6 LCR (center)
Tannoy Revolution DC6 (height & back)
McIntosh SL1 (powered sub)
McIntosh HT-2 (sub)
Edited by dahlgren - 1/7/13 at 6:38pm

Well just look yourself, in the 8801 i see one and part of board that is related to power.



And now look at the avp, where almost everything on this shot (about 60% of the box) is power related you see 6 of the 7 units and lots of supporting parts



What this means for the results is hard to claim but there can't be much doubt about the effort they spend marantz was limited in space (and cost) by the room they gained from removing the 7 amps from the 4520 and this space is taken by the HDAM boards and some extra power parts.

Daniel.

The Avp build quality is amazing.

When using a DVD-A1UD with my AVP-A1, does the Advanced AL32 in the UDP get over written or downsampled by the AVP Advanced AL24 since as said here it is always on.

Maybe more important to me is: When using my just purchased Marantz UD9004 with my AVP-A1, does the 32bit proccessing in the UDP get over written or downsampled by the AVP Advanced AL24 since as said here it is always on.

Both depend on where you do the digital analog processing. If you sent the players' analog output to the AVP and still used room correction then it would be double processed and essentailly run through AL24, if you used Pure Direct and turned off AL24 (there's some discussion about that earlier in this thread) then you'd have the AL32 in play.
Personally I think you're always better to send the direct digital signal as far down the chain as possible, so I don't think I'd use analog connections with a digital source. I also think you'd need to have ears of a bat to distinguish between AL24 or 32 with everything else that's in play.

Are you saying its possible then to turn off AL24bit processing in the digital world?

Lets say I'm playing a blu ray w/HDMI it would be preferred to have 32bit processing of audio since that's what I paid for, no matter if a human can discern the difference or not.

Didn't Denon match the AVP-A1HD 24bit with the DVD-A1UD 32bit? They were being sold at the same time on Denon USA site as their flagship/reference products.

I believe you can turn it off under certain circumstances but I'm not 100% sure which is why I referred to previous posts, do a search on this thread and maybe you can come up with the answer if someone doesn't beat you to it.

I think the 24 vs 32 processing is a moot point, I think the negative of having to send the signal through two analog stages, ie the dac in the player then the analog stage of the AVP would negate any benefit you could possibly have anyways.

Sure you paid for it, but I think it's always the best bet to shorten the signal processing path as much as possible. Really with the prowess of the AVP all you need is a transport, for audio anyways.

Did anyone say "Rolls Royce Phantom"?

True but I still want to know if the AVP downsample's 32bit to 24bit. Don't you?

So how in the AVP can AL24 be turned off in the digital and analog? So 32bit is processed at my UD9004.

If you don't go full analog it will, it has no option the audio system is 192khz/24 max and not /32. Want the 32 bits stay analog as explained in the thread (use search). I agree that i think its too much of a loss to drop EQ for it. the players have 32 bits since they are newer than the AVP by i think 18months. The AVP/POA was released first and the 3 part was added later.

@Roger, tnx forgot about that hdmi is limiting (we crosspost) too So analog out on the player is the only way.

Daniel.

Thanks Daniel.

Where can I get the upgrade done in Western Canada? Is it still available?

I would love to just buy the upgrade kit and do the upgrade myself.

Can you please explain this in a bit more detail? Thank you.

Can't be done. It requires firmare only available to repair centers.

http://ca.denon.com/ca/support/pages/servicecentersearch.aspx

Ill try if you have a 32 bits system it means that you can describe a analog value in 4,294,967,296 values, if you have a 24bits system you can only use 16,777,216 values or 256times less

Now this sounds like a big deal but say you a have a analog signal of 1Volt in 24 bits that means you describe any value with a max mistake of about 0.00000005960465 volt. with 32 bits you can
describe a value with a mistake of about 0.00000000023283volt.

Now say your signal is 0.776223 volt you with 32 bits you can get closer but in reality 24 bits can already get so close most people would agree its good enough.

So when you have a 32bits signal and it needs to pass to a hdmi cable where the audio can't be bigger than 24bits they will just throw away the lower 8 bits and with this the gained precision of 32 bits as outined above.

Not all bits are created equal like with our decimal system each position brings in extra weight so if you throw away bits they will of course remove the lower (less important) bits. Same as we would do if you throw away in normal life the values of prices of items at 2 digits behind the comma and not before.

Its a little late already but i hope this makes sense. Both Roger and me pointed to 2 places (the internal avp setup and hdmi) where the signal will be truncated to this 24bits depth.

Daniel.

A question for all the experts. When playing a CD in stereo mode does the Subwoofer 1 output work? I was playing a cd yeaterday and noticed that my HSU powered sub which has an automatic signal turn on feature was not activated. It's possible that there was no low frequency content in that CD, but I don't think so. The sub works fine when watching movies. Could I have something in the setup wrong?

Check Manual Setup -> Audio Setup -> 2ch Direct/Stereo. If it is set to Custom and Large for the front channel and Subwoofer to No then you will not get sub output. Is the sub indicator light on the front panel speaker output display lit up when you are playing the CD?

The preamp in mounted in a cabinet and I didn't notice. I'll check the setup and see what I have it set to. Thanks.

Keep in mind modes like stereo/direct/pure-direct can be tuned on the avp, so you can indeed change if the sub works, if dsp's are turned on and/or audyssey will be used. Personally i use 2 channel's pure direct with the sub on and audyssey.

Daniel.

Where is 64bit?
Edited by dahlgren - 1/10/13 at 8:11am

I have a Marantz UD9004 and a AVP-A1HDCI. No body talks on the UD9004 forum so I ask here. Want to play SACD multi and 2ch with the best audio possible with a minimum of menu changes on both UD & AVP.

Connected XLR outs to AVP, selected CD and selected XLR. Have HDMI1 out to DVD on AVP.

Never been able to play SACD till now. I'm a virgin.

Review I read said "To wrestle full control over the UD9004’s multichannel analogue outputs you’ll need to go to HDMI Setup >Audio Setup and set this to ‘Mute’ before returning to the top Audio Setup menu where the (analogue) 7.1 channel level and distance options then become available. To enable the speaker configuration options (speaker size and crossover frequency) the Source Direct mode needs to be switched from ‘On:50kHz/100kHz’ to ‘Off’. Only now may you fully configure the UD9004 as a standalone source offering 7.1 channels of analogue sound from its RCA/XLR connections and 1080p/60Hz/24Hz digital video over HDMI."
To wrestle full control over the UD9004’s multichannel analogue outputs you’ll need to go to HDMI Setup >Audio Setup and set this to ‘Mute’ before returning to the top Audio Setup menu where the (analogue) 7.1 channel level and distance options then become available. To enable the speaker configuration options (speaker size and crossover frequency) the Source Direct mode needs to be switched from ‘On:50kHz/100kHz’ to ‘Off’. Only now may you fully configure the UD9004 as a standalone source offering 7.1 channels of analogue sound from its RCA/XLR connections and 1080p/60Hz/24Hz digital video over HDMI.

This works but changes all the settings so I can't play blu ray, no video at all. Plus can't see menus, most DVD-A or SACD have a menu to select sound format options. Have to select menu option from DVD input where video is available then switch to CD input on AVP to get the sound.

I must be way off. I can't believe this is how it's expected to do this. Also some of my disks are live concerts, I want best audio with video also playing. Is this even possible?