The "Official" Denon AVR-4311CI/AVR-A100 thread [NO PRICE TALK] - Page 540

Originally Posted by ccotenj

the source/repeater never "sees" the lcd's edid info... the radiance mini simply repeats back the edid from the source...

Originally Posted by akiravf

"see the difference"

Originally Posted by joepags

Hard to make out on my droid. Which model is which in the pic?

Originally Posted by S_rangeBrew

The Denon is on the left, and has the much larger power supply.

I'm sorry, no matter how comparable they are on a spec sheet or in price, the 4311ci is a higher-end, higher-quality device than any of the Onkyo's. It's been proven time and time again.

Originally Posted by Osamede

There is little "competition" in that regard. In reality what has probably happened is that Audyssey has lowered the licencing cost per unit on XT32, which the expectation that this will allow the tech to be used on higher volume products. Such as the Onkyo 8xx and Denon 33xx line.

So yes, Denon's similar range of products will have XT32. Not really countering or anything. Pretty much all moving in lockstep. If there was any real competition, we would have seen XT32 in the Marantz AV7005/SR7005 - and we didnt.

Originally Posted by S_rangeBrew

Chris at Audyssey has consistently said the only limitation on Audyssey's quality level is the ability of the DSPs in the receiver. XT32 was only on high end receivers because they were the only ones that had the processing power for it... not licensing fees.
Have DSPs suddenly got a lot cheaper, allowing Onkyo to put them in low-end receivers? Or are they cutting corners somewhere?

Originally Posted by Osamede

No - that same guy said The CPU in the Denon 2311/3311/AV7005 from 2010 and the 2312/3312 from 2011 was capable of running XT32. Xt32 was among other things designed to run more efficient code thus reducing processing needs. But those receivers had "only" XT. I suspect the same was true in comparable Onkyo products. Many of those range of models retail(ed) at sub $1,000.

I don't think think there are many more corners to cut, so my guess is component costs and/or licencising costs going down.

In this particular case XT32 was relatively little available. So I suspect Audyssey blinked and the are positioning it for volume. It probably costs a good amount to develop the software - theyd need to start seeing it in more volume of receivers to recoup.

Originally Posted by sdrucker

Now there's an idea: a 'future-proof' AVR with an expansion slot for additional processing power. Samsung's offering one for their newest ES8000 plasma TVs. Whether it's going to be supported or useful except to 'maintain price points' won't be known until the 2013 sets come out. But if Denon had something like that and supported it....maybe that's my morning caffeine talking:-(

Originally Posted by sdrucker

Now there's an idea: a 'future-proof' AVR with an expansion slot for additional processing power. Samsung's offering one for their newest ES8000 plasma TVs. Whether it's going to be supported or useful except to 'maintain price points' won't be known until the 2013 sets come out. But if Denon had something like that and supported it....maybe that's my morning caffeine talking:-(

Originally Posted by Sam S

Onkyo tried this 8 years ago. There's only so much you can do after 5 years. Licensing changes, system architecture, etc. If you get 5-6 solid years out of a device, and don't miss out on any of the newest tech, you're doing OK.

Originally Posted by gsr

I'm not convinced there's such a thing as "future-proof". Sooner or later something will come along that the platform can't support through the expansion slot. They may be able to extend the useful life of the product a bit, but it will increase the cost.

Originally Posted by wilbur_the_goose

AMEN! My $5K "future proof" Denon AVR-5803a lasted from about 2002 thru 2009.

Originally Posted by akiravf

"see the difference"

Originally Posted by cybrsage

These are better pics to use as your picture only shows the metal shield and not the actual transformers.

Denon 4311:


Onkyo 3009:


The Onkyo has four transformers (not sure where the other is, the website lists four while I only see three) while the Denon has one. This could easily explain why the Denon's single transformer must be larger. I find it interesting that the Denon uses two fans while the Onkyo uses none.


EDIT: The 5009 uses a torroidial transformer, as well as the same three smaller, standard transformers:

Originally Posted by joepags

Hard to make out on my droid. Which model is which in the pic?

Originally Posted by sdrucker

Not to pick on a straw man....but Onkyo isn't Denon in terms of QC. Denon's done hardware upgrades before (i.e. the 5930CI). What I was thinking of were having the ability to add a dual core processor or the equivalent that would allow a future upgrade path for higher version of Audyssey - and address nitpicks like Pro not being able to correctly work with dual independent subs on an existing measurement file, or the Audyssey EQ graphs not having room for subs on the "After" chart to show which frequencies have been improved (to the extent that the plot is accurate).

Originally Posted by sdrucker

Conceptually, how is that any different than TiVo having an e-SATA slot -it would allow more processing by the unit without being limited by the current architecture in the one to three year short term (but it would require a different way of thinking about the physical lifecycle of the AVR). My real wish list would be for cloud computing, but that's asking for too much in the AVR world.

Originally Posted by akiravf

The Onkyo uses two fan of 90x90 mm , I have a 3008

Originally Posted by Sam S


The development costs are too high for those kinds of upgrades. Hell, even the $1K update I just did for my Denon AVP was silly money, and I'll bet Denon doesn't make a lot of that back in profit. I think it was more of a "courtesy upgrade" because they won't have a flagship replacement any time soon.

It's never going to happen, for the same reason we get new iPhones and new laptops every year. It is cheaper, and more profitable to design from the ground up. If you want something that has great ability to update, it would have to be purely software based (think iPhone app). Hardware is just too tough.

Originally Posted by markabuckley

well re-tried another Aud. calibration this evening - and slightly better results - but still nearly all speakers boosted in the upper registers

whats frustrating me is that the calibrated sound sounds very good - apart from this obvious (and I'm sure its not placebo) - feeling of an overlay of brittleness at the top end that makes you not want to turn it up

copy the curve into manual EQ - then reduce all the +6dB 16khz corrections to 0, and reduce the 8khz corrections to no more than +1dB - and the result is not quite so seemless - but the brittless at the top end has gone - and you feel like you can turn it up much higher without distortion. Without the >8khz corrections the sound doesn't sound dull or flat as most "treble" correction is in the 2-5khz range.

as I said - I'm sure its not an Audyssey calibration or mic problem - its just they are trying to correct something that my speakers really don't want to do - they naturally fall off at higher frequencies, and boosting there really doesn't add anything to the sound other than adding distortion and britleness

obviously using manual EQ - you then loose all the lovely mid-range complex calibration and most importantly have zip subwoofer correction

very frustrating - I'm beginning to come to conclusion that without a manual cap of where the EQ stops attempting to correct - that XT32 won't work for my room/speaker setup

I guess the EQ is not clever enough to work out whether a lack of response at the upper end is due to the room (too much soft furnishing) or inherent to the speakers - if the latter - I'm assuming pumping large gains at high frequencies is not really going to help much