Denon AVR-4810CI/AVR-4810 w/ 9.3ch, Dolby PLIIz/Audyssey DSX, October 09- - Page 68

My Denons are hardwired, and no the problem didn't occur during the network upgrade. As I just mentioned in another post, Denon admitted to me over the phone this morning that the problem is with "the network card". I'm sure that some people are having firmware upgrade issues, but their network cards in the first batch or couple of batches of 4310s and 4810s have failure problems and need to be replaced. It may be the case that the cards fail for some people during the firmware download but my units have failed weeks after their latest firmware updates. Both units work & still perform flawlessly other than I can't access any network features.

VeniceDre. I got that. Thanks, clearly with mine it was a network issue. I'm going to check the manufacture date of the replacement as well.

This just shows how unexpected the troubleshooting realities can be for these products. Given your situation, I would have been swearing at my router, trying to figure out how I had misconfigured it to screw my connections.

It never would have occurred to me that the network cards in TWO receivers in TWO models would have been bad.

Live and learn. Lucky you got a straight-taking CS rep.

A page or two back I talked about the networking problem I had recently, and how I had to connect it via wire before I could manually get into the networking settings again. I likewise could not get past the "Network Connecting" part of the menu (could highlight but not drill down). Wonder if I lucked out that once in somehow resetting it, and have a more permanent networking failure on the horizon...

Ok, so there's a problem with the network card But does that mean it's possible that the wireless might not work but the wired does; or viceversa? In other words, if a network card is defective does it mean the wireless and wired are both bad or can only one be working? It seems so strange that I was able to (in ignorance) do my first update by wireless flawlessly. After that it was hit or miss for wireless Internet radio for a couple of weeks and now it never connects...but always connects with wired (using a Netgear Powerline adapter).

Is there an easy way to find out if my 4810 has one of these defective network cards? I bought mine n late December.

Louis

I was told the first four digits of the serial number are the manufacturing date. Both of my 4310 & 4810 units start with "908". "9" is the year 2009, and "08" is the month of August. Who knows if you have a bad card into it goes bad though. My 4310 took 2 months to go kaput, and the 4810 took a month.

The service CSR indicated that the early production run of 4310 apparently had bad network cards and this was corrected in later produced units, but was not aware of the same issue with the 4810. But she suspected it had the same card.

I'm just glad she actually knew of the issue and would escalate the info re: 4810 higher up, but she said it usually took 2-3 months for the techs in Japan to reply to new issues.

Hi!
I might be wrong, but my understanding is that the ci version is for USA etc, and has things like sirius. The european type number lacks the ci, or so I thought (and also the USA-specific features!)...
Oh well, all the important bits are the same, no doubt!
Best regards,
Mark

... and thanks, Deck, for the links!!

Curious if anyone has played with the stage width and/or height settings in the DSX menu? I haven't yet, but might see what it does tonight. The manual isn't real clear on what adjusting these will do.

they are volume controls for the height/wide speakers. turning it down will trim down the height/wide speakers by the specified amount (up to 10dB), it allows you to "tame" the DSX effect if you find it too overbearing.

quick question
I would like to be able to control the volume through my cable remote. Does anyone know the codes for it?

Is there an easy way to tell which settings are universal and which ones differ by input?

Thanks

Wes

honestly... trial and error

welcome to Denon! the AVR brand for empiricists....

AVRat (post #1998),

I hadn't been following the rumors about the possibility of a new Denon mid-level pre/pro. I'll keep my eyes open for it later in the year. (In the past I've probably spent more than I should on gear by Mark Levinson, Thiel, and Martin Logan. Still, I loved the feeling of almost being in a live concert. Today, though, I find it a little difficult to think of $2.5K as "mid-level." [sigh] )

I've just started reading through the Integra preamp DHC-80.1 thread, but that might take a day or two.

Though I've enjoyed the sound of Onkyo equipment, I know their recent AVRs have had some performance problems, but this new Integra is at the right price point and appears to have most of the current bells and whistles.

Thank you for the response.

Ha ha, so true!!

Musical. IMHO the new Onkyo Pre's do not have a comparable Denon competitor. If you can never see using the Denon internals for perhaps additional Zones or being used to loaf around and power say rears and heights, I think the Onkyo's are compelling.

I've read the GUI is clunkier, it is slower to react to commands and there have been more recent Onkyo dissapointments in customer service and perhaps quality. I have a near allergic reaction to all things Onkyo (Don't know why, I just do) but really they look pretty good and I think it's more of a "What do you think" kind of answer. I do know we Denon people are more fun to hang with. I hear their thread is boring......

Hehe so true upgrade to the denon avp/poa, our sticky thread is the best on avs, complete with group hugs and special 24/7 help for new owners .

Daniel.

Just curious. Why is that thread stickied?

Because we rule !!! Its been placed on top to show to the world how a thread should be.

Daniel.

PS: just kidding i have no idea i guess because several mods own avp's and it was the only viable modern pre/pro for a long time ? As a result we also seem to get offtopic denon questions from time to time and point people to the area/thread so its not all bad.

How do I setup auto surround defaults?

See page 91 in the manual. btw - Did you know you can hit the STD (standard) button on the remote to toggle through the surround modes?

Peter,

I use this STD button all the time. DD+PLIIx C for movies, and DD+PLIIz for Sirius music and other concert videos.

Raybo

Hello everyone,

I am seriously considering buying this receiver, earlier today I was flipping through my old Denon AVR-5700's manual and came across something I don't think I ever remember seeing until now. I have had this receiver for a little over 10 years and to think I was just receiving 1kHz when watching movies, I'm seriously confused! It was in the amplifier specs, how does the information below compare to a receiver rated 140W x 7 into 8 ohms 20Hz - 20kHz?

Stereo (2ch driven) > 140W + 140W into 8 ohms 20Hz -20kHz with 0.05% T.H.D
5.1 Surround 140W x 5 into 8 ohms 1kHz with 0.7 T.H.D

Best regards,
Techlord.

It's how they measured the distortion on the amp, nothing more.

While watching a hi-def or regular channel on directv is it normal for the 4810 to make the clicking sound every once in a while? It will happen sometimes in the middle of a show. Is it losing signal and dropping from DD to DPiix maybe?

The audio signal is changing, as you mentioned, so it is switching to the new sound stream (2 channel to dolby digital,etc..).

Right - basically, it was a way of coaxing out a more generous "on paper" power rating with all channels driven.

When an amp is spec'd for power, you have to pick a specific distortion point as the "cut off" frequency. As the amp delivers more power, it will distort more and more.... so if you cut it off at 0.05% THD, you will get a lower power rating then if you let it climb to 0.7% THD.

The power-to-distortion graph looks like this (this is the 4310CI):



So, if you pick a different distortion threshold as your cut-off point, you can quote a different power rating.

The other part (1kHz vs 20-20) tells you whether they measured the power by sending a full bandwidth signal (20Hz to 20kHz) or by using a continuous tone at one specified frequency (1kHz). The "full band" signal is a more stringent test, and so the amp will get a higher rating if you use the 1kHz test.

This allows manufacturers to monkey around with marketing, so you have to be careful when comparing amp specs. For example, the 18lb, $379 Yamaha RX-V465 is marketed as having 105W/ch, but if you dig into the specs you can see this is quoted at 1kHz with a high distortion threshold (0.9% THD I think). In real bench tests, it actually puts out like 30W/ch with 5 channels driven... but this allows people to think they are buying a more powerful receiver than that 90W/ch Denon that costs twice as much

So, you can safely assume that the "all channels driven" test with a full bandwidth (20-20) measurement would really be lower than 140W/ch, but that is normal. For example, the 4310CI measures at 155W/ch with 2ch driven, but drops to 114W/ch with 5 channels driven:

http://hometheatermag.com/receivers/...er/index4.html

Raybo - yes, it's one of my favorite buttons... so glad I found it

Now this I understand, I have come to prefer HTM (Stereophile also) as my valuable source for more accurate information. HTM doesn't show 1kHz tests only 20Hz to 20kHz with all channels driven, most Denon's aren't far off there rated watts per channel. So it's realistic to assume I'm not getting clean power at 140W per channel, probably closer to 100W if measured 20Hz to 20kHz. Now I understand why people that have separate 5-7 channel amplifiers that give you full power 20Hz to 20kHz at their rated power output when used with a preamp processor! I'm thinking about selling something to be able to buy the Denon AVR-4810CI, but haven't taken that step yet. I would be keeping my Denon AVR-5700 for a dedicated 2 channel stereo setup, my M&K 750THX system is better for theater sound, while still good in 2ch stereo I feel some bookshelfs or floorstanding speakers are in my future.


Thank you everyone,
Techlord.

Techlord. 1st, I'm power nuts but second, you hit it just right on why people sometimes get external amplification. IMHO (while attempting to be sane), for many people the 4810s internal amplifier is enough assuming a normal size listening area, fairly efficient speakers (Let's say 91+db/1M/1W) and powered sub or two. I also assume 9.1 or .2. If you really like loud everything, or have hard to drive speakers (difficult dips in resistance) or very inefficient speakers; you may well then want/need externals.

Anyone can solve this by hitting the used market or picking up something like an Emotiva XPA-3 or XPA-5. You can then go to 11.1 and still offload the fronts to an external. You could also get a cheaper lower powered used 5 channel amp and off-load the less used rears and perhaps heights. The 4810 can power whatever else you want/need. The XPA-3 is particularly tasty as you can go power your fronts with it and still leave one mono Zone out to something like a hallway/room entrance speaker. The 5 channel gets you to 11.1 plus one stereo zone and one mono zone. It's crazy fun!

The flexibilty of the free assign feature and having 9 internal channels actually creates an unusual argument for the 4810 over a similarly priced Pre. It's kind of like "You can have your cake and eat it too".

I like the power/slam simply flat out nuts overkill of using my externals. But if you remain sane a single reasonably priced external amp will do just fine. Also, you can always pick one up later... I'm getting close to powering the bathroom with speakers (Zone 2) for those wanting play by play sound or have to take a break during a movie night. I have the channels available to do this.

Seriously though, the internal amp is pretty good for most rooms. Just my opinion.