Official Denon AVP-A1HD/AVP-A1HDCI and POA-A1HD/POA-A1HDCI owners thread. - Page 815

The back plate of the AVP-H1HDCI says Made in Japan. Does anyone know if this model was ever Made in Germany?

I don't think so. Why should it be Made in Germany? Mine is also 'Made in Japan'.

No they are all hand build by a special team in Denon's R&D place in Shirakawa, Japan.

This might have changed after the flooding but that is what we have been told in 2008.

Daniel.

Wow, I am more and more impressed by this unit and I don't regret even a moment that I bought mine. Thank you for the information Daniel.

BTW Shirakawa is located on the north coast of Japan between Tokyo and Kyoto. This is quite far away from Fukushima and in a mountain region. Though, I believe, a nice place to do R&D - if this is the place you meant in Ishikawa prefecture, close to Nagano, Toyama and Kanazawa?
Edited by Ganymed4 - 2/3/13 at 6:06am

Thanks got it now. But how do you connect the iPhone to the AVP?

I asked because a dealer told me this Denon was so special it was made in Germany.
Edited by Orbitron - 2/3/13 at 8:56am

Well, yes, dealers and what they tell you.

However, I am very happy, that this unit was handmade in Japan and not in China. Germany might have been nice too, we also have some nice HiFi-equipment manufactured in Germany, however, we don't have one company here, willing to pay the license fees for Dolby, DTS and all others. It seems only very large companies can do the effort to develop their own chip-sets and pay the money for the license fees.
There is only one company - I know - which is called Audionet, which has built a very remarkable Surround pre-amp, called MAP. But this box doesn't even have HDMI inputs and they never produced a follow-up, up to today. It's a bit like the Bryston SP3 but without HDMI, only DVI inputs (2) and one output, if I remember correctly.

So, don't expect too much coming from Germany in this direction. May be the dealer wanted to make this unit special because people in the US like German cars and they are sold with the 'super engineers' made them touch. Who knows...

O sorry i must have been mistaken with one of their other R&D places, i remember one was effected and assumed .. sorry.

@Orbitron , i am sure we are wrong sometimes but on avg we have a better track record than dealers . I would be interested to know how he/she would explain the made in japan plate on the box ?. It is true that most AVP's coming to europe used to pass to Germany. For netherlands this might have changed since here its now part of the D&M thingie again and Marantz was located in our country. All i know i know i prefer work in the AVP to be done germany simply because they handled more of them.

Daniel.

Been testing the avp for about two months now. I'm coming from a Classe Processor into lexicon amps

Have to say, and this will not be a popular comment. I AM NOT IMPRESSED. Perhaps I expected more but IMO sound is just not good enough.

Now, I have communicated with other avp owners some who actually concur with me, but I'm more vociferous than they as I come from a ultra high end 2ch background and everything is referenced against it (and of course also my experience with the Classe processor ) and so my expectations are VERY high.

The best I ever heard going way back was a 2 box by Proceed.( PAV (???)/PDSD) and the 2 box from Angstrom ( I was there at the 200/205 launch actually!) That was in the very early days of home cinema. In the 90s. I remember both cost around £5000. Of course DD and DTS but not HD in them days.

Back to the avp. I'm sending mine to a mod guy in germany who feels the same as I do about the Denon Assures me he can "fix " it. We'll see...

I just read in a online review that the POA-A1HDCI is not a fully differential balanced design. Can any owners here confirm or deny this? If it is true, I'm wondering what pin 3 on the XLR's are doing. Thanks in advance for any insight

Daniel, i'm going to try to track this down next time i speak to my dealer. Home theater/music room almost finished, other gear includes T+A D 10-2 CD-SACD player, Octave HP 500 SE pre amp, T+A M10 amps and Dynaudio Confidence C4s.

I don't think there is anyone claiming that the input stage is not fully differential, with all the attendant benefits in common mode noise immunity.

The normal mode of operation of the amp's output stage is single ended. So that's not strictly "balanced differential" anymore.
Edited by Roger Dressler - 2/3/13 at 10:27pm

The reason its a little confusing is that you can use it in more than one mode (as Roger outlined) if used in normal mode (1 amp per signal) its not balanced fully. But it allows you to use 2 amps per channel (bridge) and then it becomes balanced. This is not weird most people use a 7.x setup so you need 7 amps and have 3 left. The 3 are mostly used to bridge the 3 fronts and so make them balanced.

Here is a more complete review of the balanced ideas behind the avp and poa : http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/processors/denon-avp-a1hdci/review-addendum-balanced-transmission-further-explored

Notice that to show all 10 channels balanced they use 2 POA's in this picture so 20 amps. This is also the reason why the AVP allows you to hook up 2 POA's in the amp menu.

Hope this helps,

Daniel.

edit: read the review for a full size image. or read the whole review
http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/processors/denon-avp-a1hdci
http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/amplifiers/denon-poa-a1hdci

Maybe he/she was talking about the 3d upgrade work also keep in mind that no AVP's are build anymore its out of production.

Daniel.

Download DEremote on the App Store, make sure your AVP is connected to a Wireless Router and your iphone is connected to same router and your ready to go.

Well, that you are 'not impressed' doesn't surprise me, honestly. Reading about your background, this doesn't surprise me at all. I don't know what others think or say, but there are better sounding units around especially looking at the 2ch ultra-high-end.
However, if you think about the effect of DSPs on the sound and what happens, if you switch them off, the Denon sounds excellent. I mean, if you send a rectangle signal through the amp, watch it in the oscilloscope and switch on the DSPs, most times you see that this rectangle will look less rectangle shaped - jaggies and all this nasty stuff.
What I want to say is, that the AVP A1 does a very good, even excellent job for a unit with all these features. The other AV pre-amps, I heard of, which sound better, lack video processing completely. And this for a good reason. It is the source of many bad influences to the sound.
Therefore comparing 2 ch to fully featured AV pre-amps, does little sense, in my opinion. Per definition - electronics, a 2 ch amp can easily sound better than an AV pre-amp.
However, if you want all the features, you have to compromise. At least this is my point of view.
Edited by Ganymed4 - 2/4/13 at 2:27pm

I've just noticed that the volume knob on my AVP-A1 isn't firm, when I press it in it's going in and then comes back to the normal position, as if there's a spring behind it. The source select knob is firm when I press it. I'm not sure if this is a defect or not, if the AVP was built like this or not, apart from not being firm the volume knob works fine... Could you guys please check the volume knobs on your AVP's and let me know if they are firm?

Thanks,

R

Firm. Not moving.

Just checked it for you. You are welcome.

Thank you, anyone else?

R

^^

Both mine are firm here.......I suspect something is amiss with your AVP. Not sure how the knobs come off but maybe the unit was serviced and they forgot to reattach the volume knob correctly? Just a guess........
Edited by WillyJ - 2/4/13 at 5:44pm

It's actually "ssssss" sound, when doing channel tester in AVP, I thought when you start the test, each speaker makes "ssssssss" sound, and as you rotate each speakers.
But somehow, when I rotate to SR speakers, sub "ssssssss" with SR, which means I have the SR and Sub making sound, but my cursor on the AVP is on SR, why would SUB make any sounds?
Scrolling down the sub option, and the sub doesn't make any sound. FR, FL, SL seems to do well, when moved to coressponding names, and sounds coming accordingly to the names.

Oh, and my sub is in the same power conditioner as my pre-amp and amp.

Thanks
George

Could this possibly be a problem with output channel assignments? If you set the subwoofer output to be SR, then the subwoofer would be playing whatever comes out of the SR channel. To check this, go through the menus as follows:

1) Press the Menu button to go into the AVP's setup menu.
2) Scroll up/down until you get to "Manual Setup" and press the right arrow.
3) Scroll up/down until you get to "Option Setup" and press the right arrow.
4) Scroll up/down until you get to "Pre-out Assign" and press the right arrow.
5) Assuming Assign Mode is set to "Free Assign", press the down arrow twice to get to the assignments screen.

Report back with what you see on that screen (if you can take a picture and post it that might be easiest).

If Assign Mode is set to something other than "Free Assign" in step 5, then my guess is probably incorrect.

OK, what am I doing wrong dambit!

Got the Stones' Grrrr Bluray playing on the Oppo -93, is it just me or is it normal for the AVP to not display Dolby TrueHD in large letters on the front panel in 2 channel Dolby TrueHD mode? This might be the first ever 2 channel Dolby TrueHD disc I have ever played so I am a bit befuddled here. The small Dolby TrueHD light is on but am wondering why it doesn't display in bold letters like it normally does for Dolby TrueHD mch sources.

Just seems odd to have to select Direct/Stereo or PLIIx, 7 channel stereo, etc., along with it.........Seems like there should be a Dolby TrueHD mode all by itself that would display on the front panel --Not PLIIx or Direct, which is what I am seeing.

Enlighten me please.

WillyJ - I think that since it's a 2ch stream, here's whats happening.

the AVP reads the HDMI audio stream, sees the TrueHD codec is required, decodes it to however many channels, 2ch in the case. then the audio mode block gets the n number of channels and applies the currently selected audio mode for that input for that number of channels.

So if you normal setting for the Oppo input is to run PLIIx music for 2ch, then that's what will be engaged.

If for multichannel content via TrueHD, you have THX cinema, then that will be applied.

So it's not so much whether the codec is DTS or TruHD or even Multichannel HDMI in, it has to do with the current inputs Audio mode setting for the number of channels being presented at that time on a per codec basis.

Therefore the front panel will show as relevant a set of information as possible, which in your example, happens to be that PLIIx (music?) was being applied to the 2ch stream.

Note that audio mode is also a per codec memory as well. So DTS 2ch might be doing Stereo, and TrueHD could be doing PLLIx cinema. But 2ch LPCM might be PLIIx music.

This is all quite nice and handy, but unless you remember the architecture and this per input, per codec, per number of channels audio setting preference thing, it can seem rather random.
Edited by JonFo - 2/7/13 at 5:39am

^^

Thanks Jonathan. I understand the per codec, per number of channels and audio mode being saved in memory but how do I get it to over-ride? I do have it set to default to PLII for 2 channel sources but I don't wan't PLII for Dolby TrueHD 2 channel - how do I get it out? Or, is Direct/Stereo going the be the same thing as straight Dolby TrueHD. Just seems like there ought to be a way to get it out of whatever mode it wants to go to for 2 channel sources so that it will display DOLBY TRUEHD as an actual MODE on the front panel. In other words, it wouldn't display DIRECT, STEREO, PLII, etc.. it would display Dolby TrueHD.

The same would go for DTS HD MA 2 channel as well (although on this particular BR disc, I cannot get that mode to play yet).

Hi WillyJ,

first of all, what audio track is on this Blu-Ray? Is it multi-channel Dolby Tru-HD or stereo Tru-HD?

Is the Oppo set to bit-stream output? I have the 103 and can tell you exactly what settings you need, if necessary.

Second, please check the signal input section of the AVP - left side of the front display - and that the HDMI connection is used as input signal for the AVP, also shown on the front panel, if I am not mistaken. Or simply disconnect all other cables - except the HDMI - between the Oppo and the AVP.

I would recommend to use 'direct' as the mode for the AVP. This decodes also all HD formats but doesn't apply post-processing, like NeoX or PLIIz/x. If the Blu-Ray main title starts, you should see on the display of the AVP True-HD or any other format which is on the disk. If the disk is multi-channel and the AVP shows only stereo, then you have a setting wrong in the Oppo.

The Oppo should send bit-stream to the AVP that the decoder in the AVP can work on it, decode the signal and send it out. Otherwise, the Oppo does the job of decoding and sends a two channel PCM signal to the AVP, which has nothing to decode.
The display button on the remote of the AVP, shows you also the input and output signals the AVP is getting - if I am not mistaken here, regarding the button.

I hope I understood your problem correctly and could be of some help.

Well, anyone thinking of switching to a Marantz AVP, my suggestion is don't do it. Although my setup in our dedicated HT with my AVP/POA is far superior, the Marantz stack which replaced some aging Sunfire equipment in another room is much harsher and bright in comparison. No warm sound that I like in the upgraded Denon stack. However, it is likely my speakers to a large extent as well as the room setup. Technology is nice which makes me wish they would have come out with a AVP2. Not a good AB type of comparison. The Denon combo is much more flexible for a wide a variety of sources. However, the Marantz combo is a nice piece of equipment and for most would be a great edition any setup..... Maybe the amp is the weak link... SJ

Thanks SJ

Thank you. I expected something like this and I am happy, that my decision for the AVP and against the Marantz was correct.

I listened to a bunch of SACDs today. The Marantz is very impressive. The AVP just better. I would play the music in one room and then hop to the other with the same disk. Not the best AB type of comparison process. Guess if I gave the AVP a 10, the Marantz would be a 8.5. It really does sound good, even better than my initial observations. Just not quite the AVP in my opinion. But I'm glad I got it for our second system. Some of the difference is going to be the room and other components. SJ