[Anteranz]

Same here! I love these surrounds since I do not have rear surrounds and these give me an extra effect of rear sound.

I'll be comparing the 8500 Denon as a processor only to the Marantz 8805 and giving my impressions in the coming weeks. Since I do not need the amps in the 8500, I want to see if the Marantz is better in the processing department. I know the SINAD is better on the Denon but that's not as important with EQ enabled and real listening. I'll keep whichever one sounds better to my ears.

Hello storm, I don't know if you saw the youthman's video yesterday and made mention of the difference in favor of the prepro vs avr and compared the sr8015 to av7706 and the av7706 was the clear winner since the dynamics and channel separation was greater than in the sir .. if you are not going to use the internal amplifiers, why pay for them? You already had a good av I doubt you will notice improvement using the 8500 as a prepro since youthamn did the same test with the sr8015 with hardly any improvements, in your case I would have gone to the prepro av860 or avm60 that seem to be on another notch!

 

[iStorm]

Hello storm, I don't know if you saw the youthman's video yesterday and made mention of the difference in favor of the prepro vs avr and compared the sr8015 to av7706 and the av7706 was the clear winner since the dynamics and channel separation was greater than in the sir .. if you are not going to use the internal amplifiers, why pay for them? You already had a good av I doubt you will notice improvement using the 8500 as a prepro since youthamn did the same test with the sr8015 with hardly any improvements, in your case I would have gone to the prepro av860 or avm60 that seem to be on another notch!

Hi, yes I have seen that video but I want to know for my personal experience and my ears. I have owned the 8805 prior and was very impressed but it was randomly restarting. I have now fixed that issue by moving to another room where the circuits in the have more power.

The only reason I got the 8500H was because it has a very good SINAD so I figured it was the superior processor but I may be wrong and the 8805 may be better. I need to A/B test them to find out. A good SINAD on paper is awesome but doesn't mean much in the real world unless it is terrible. The 8805 measured worse SINAD wise but there is more to processors than just SINAD values. For instance, I owned a Arcam AV40 that measured worse SINAD than an 8805 and it sounded good.

Also I have had Anthem AVM60 and thought about the AVM70 upgrade that is coming out soon but I want the reliability of Marantz/Denon and prefer AUDYSSEY to ARC. ARC is great on paper but it made the high end dull on the AVM60 for me.

Hopefully I will get this sorted out soon but I figure the 8805 should be better suited for my needs. I planned to eventually use the 8500H to give some power to additional heights but I can always buy a separate amp for those when I upgrade later.

 

[Anteranz]

Hi, yes I have seen that video but I want to know for my personal experience and my ears. I have owned the 8805 prior and was very impressed but it was randomly restarting. I have now fixed that issue by moving to another room where the circuits in the have more power.

The only reason I got the 8500H was because it has a very good SINAD so I figured it was the superior processor but I may be wrong and the 8805 may be better. I need to A/B test them to find out. A good SINAD on paper is awesome but doesn't mean much in the real world unless it is terrible. The 8805 measured worse SINAD wise but there is more to processors than just SINAD values. For instance, I owned a Arcam AV40 that measured worse SINAD than an 8805 and it sounded good.

Also I have had Anthem AVM60 and thought about the AVM70 upgrade that is coming out soon but I want the reliability of Marantz/Denon and prefer AUDYSSEY to ARC. ARC is great on paper but it made the high end dull on the AVM60 for me.

Hopefully I will get this sorted out soon but I figure the 8805 should be better suited for my needs. I planned to eventually use the 8500H to give some power to additional heights but I can always buy a separate amp for those when I upgrade later.

Well, hopefully you notice an improvement with the 8500h as the owner of one I hope you notice the sinad I will be attentive to your messages .. remember that you have to use the "custom" mode as it gave better results than the "preamp" mode by the way it surprises me that having had arcam and anthem that are assumed to be better, you will change to marantz..I don't get out of my head to try the nad t778 that is surely different from denon since each brand has its signature! Compared to the current sound of your av8805 vs the previous ones, did you notice more detail, dynamics and musicality with the arcam or anthem?

 

[Magiclakez]

Just finished watching the SpareChange live stream on YouTube featuring the famous German Youtuber Patrick from Grobi tv.

Very interesting exchange on the Dolby atmos implementation for 6 height channels. Patrick was alluding to the fact that on most of the Dolby atmos supported movies (Kong Skull island/ Ready player one etc.), only the top middles were active and the rest (front and rear height channels) were essentially silent/inactive.

This is the video (1:03:00 onwards):

 

[iStorm]

Just finished watching the SpareChange live stream on YouTube featuring the famous German Youtuber Patrick from Grobi tv.

Very interesting exchange on the Dolby atmos implementation for 6 height channels. Patrick was alluding to the fact that on most of the Dolby atmos supported movies (Kong Skull island/ Ready player one etc.), only the top middles were active and the rest were essentially silent/inactive.

This is the video (1:03:00 onwards):

I'm not sure if it matters but I only use top middles in my 5.2.2 setup and everything sounds great. I plan on doing front and rear heights eventually though.

 

[dj7675]

Well, hopefully you notice an improvement with the 8500h as the owner of one I hope you notice the sinad I will be attentive to your messages .. remember that you have to use the "custom" mode as it gave better results than the "preamp" mode by the way it surprises me that having had arcam and anthem that are assumed to be better, you will change to marantz..I don't get out of my head to try the nad t778 that is surely different from denon since each brand has its signature! Compared to the current sound of your av8805 vs the previous ones, did you notice more detail, dynamics and musicality with the arcam or anthem?

Note, that according to @jdsmoothie the preamp mode was in fact fixed according to Denon. We have not seen any bench tests supporting that, however. So there is no harm running it in custom mode, however sincebench tests haven't confirmed it being fixed.

 

[Anteranz]

Note, that according to @jdsmoothie the preamp mode was in fact fixed according to Denon. We have not seen any bench tests supporting that, however. So there is no harm running it in custom mode, however sincebench tests haven't confirmed it being fixed.

I was saying it because when amir checked your 8500 using the preamp mode I noticed a huge distortion if I remember correctly! By the way I use gold100 monitors in a room of about 10m2 so I don't need a lot of power, I have seen two mono amplifiers of the Marantz brand ma-23 that have only 50w but I have seen the ma-24 with only 30w in class to move more some bowers 802 d3 .. what do you think about this amp to improve the stereo sound?

 

[dj7675]

I was saying it because when amir checked your 8500 using the preamp mode I noticed a huge distortion if I remember correctly! By the way I use gold100 monitors in a room of about 10m2 so I don't need a lot of power, I have seen two mono amplifiers of the Marantz brand ma-23 that have only 50w but I have seen the ma-24 with only 30w in class to move more some bowers 802 d3 .. what do you think about this amp to improve the stereo sound?

Correct, it did. But it was also fixed via a firmware update according to @jdsmoothie. I wouldn’t expect those amps to be an improvement IMO. I would look for amps that measure cleaner (less noise/distortion) than those or the built in amps. For example benchmark, hypex (nc252/nc502/nc400), NAD M27/M28, Purifi based, Monoprice Monolith, ATI etc. I also would see no reason to get an amp with less power than 100w for most situations (unless you have very sensitive speakers).

 

[Magiclakez]

I'm not sure if it matters but I only use top middles in my 5.2.2 setup and everything sounds great. I plan on doing front and rear heights eventually though.

Do you have those 2 channels right in front of you or behind you?

 

[iStorm]

Do you have those 2 channels right in front of you or behind you?

The 2 atmos channels are on the ceiling in line with the ultra towers and are right in front of us by our legs. It sounds fantastic! I just select them as top middles in the Denon.

 

[Magiclakez]

The 2 atmos channels are on the ceiling in line with the ultra towers and are right in front of us by our legs. It sounds fantastic! I just select them as top middles in the Denon.

That’s awesome. Just wondering if you could have set them up as front heights, in case you do decide to experience Auro-3D at some point.

Auro-3D does not recognize top middles, whereas top/rear heights are universal across all formats. But then again if it ain’t broke, why fix it. Lol.

 

[Cleveland Plasma]

You've lasted a lot longer than I did with the Netflix DVD plan. I was with Netflix DVD/BD from about 2006 to around 2015 or so when their content starting to get a lot smaller. It was also around the time that their streaming service was starting with 4k content. I switched over and never looked back. I'm glad that their is another service that provides 4k discs!

Disks certainly seem to be evaporating. Everything is headed to streaming.

 

[AYanguas]

None. Just a living room converted into a home theater and for no other purpose. So following Floyd Toole with leaving stuff in the room (couch, rug, record racks, pictures & posters on walls, etc), I found it more than reasonable, not that it couldn't be improved.

Thank you. I did the same.That follows the 'theory' of leaving the Flat curve for more treated rooms that could be very dead sound.

 

[satyab]

I have recently acquired Toshiba HD-DVD HD-XA2. When I try to connect to any of HDMI ports in back, gives HDMI Out of range error ( JVC NX7 connected with HDMI 2.1).
When Connected to front HDMI (AUX1), everything worked fine. Is there a difference to these HDMI ports?

 

[jdsmoothie]

I have recently acquired Toshiba HD-DVD HD-XA2. When I try to connect to any of HDMI ports in back, gives HDMI Out of range error ( JVC NX7 connected with HDMI 2.1).
When Connected to front HDMI (AUX1), everything worked fine. Is there a difference to these HDMI ports?

Yes. As noted on p. 314 of the X8500H Owner's manual ...

The HDMI connector on the front panel supports YCbCr 4:2:0 format only.

 

[johnnyboy632]

Correct, it did. But it was also fixed via a firmware update according to @jdsmoothie. I wouldn’t expect those amps to be an improvement IMO. I would look for amps that measure cleaner (less noise/distortion) than those or the built in amps. For example benchmark, hypex (nc252/nc502/nc400), NAD M27/M28, Purifi based, Monoprice Monolith, ATI etc. I also would see no reason to get an amp with less power than 100w for most situations (unless you have very sensitive speakers).

I was running my 4 surround speakers through a rotel rmb1555 and it has been a wasted purchase to be honest. I then switched to internal amps and they crap all over the rotel. My trims were -1.5 with the rotel and with denon they are -4.5. If anyone is thinking of upgrading denon and paying for external application I would not purchase anything with less than 150w per channel all driven as the denons amps are amazing in performance. Get something like a xpa7 to run the bed channels and let the denon power the heights and set it too custom mode. If you want to run external power for heights, to make it worthy upgrade and not a waste of money get atleast another xpa7 to see any real difference.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[johnnyboy632]

I have recently acquired Toshiba HD-DVD HD-XA2. When I try to connect to any of HDMI ports in back, gives HDMI Out of range error ( JVC NX7 connected with HDMI 2.1).
When Connected to front HDMI (AUX1), everything worked fine. Is there a difference to these HDMI ports?

I do still have a HD DVD xe1 and if I have denon set to 4k enhanced in setup I get nothing but set it to standard I’m all good. Not too sure if it’s a bug but haven’t really bothered to get in touch with denon about it


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[b0rnarian]

I was running my 4 surround speakers through a rotel rmb1555 and it has been a wasted purchase to be honest. I then switched to internal amps and they crap all over the rotel. My trims were -1.5 with the rotel and with denon they are -4.5. If anyone is thinking of upgrading denon and paying for external application I would not purchase anything with less than 150w per channel all driven as the denons amps are amazing in performance. Get something like a xpa7 to run the bed channels and let the denon power the heights and set it too custom mode. If you want to run external power for heights, to make it worthy upgrade and not a waste of money get atleast another xpa7 to see any real difference.


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Though I agree with the wattage, wouldn't it be better to get an amp for just the front 2 towers or 3 channels alone and let the denon handle the rest as opposed to put the entire base layer on separate amps? No wrong answers here...

 

[kdp99]

I was running my 4 surround speakers through a rotel rmb1555 and it has been a wasted purchase to be honest. I then switched to internal amps and they crap all over the rotel. My trims were -1.5 with the rotel and with denon they are -4.5. If anyone is thinking of upgrading denon and paying for external application I would not purchase anything with less than 150w per channel all driven as the denons amps are amazing in performance. Get something like a xpa7 to run the bed channels and let the denon power the heights and set it too custom mode. If you want to run external power for heights, to make it worthy upgrade and not a waste of money get atleast another xpa7 to see any real difference.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I have a 7.1 system with the 8500 only driving the surround back speakers, and trusty Denon POA-T10's driving the rest (useful as the POA-T10's have A and B speaker outputs, and I have 2 sets of surround speakers). I mostly did it that way as that was how my old system was and it was the least work to do. When the wallet has recovered and I add height speakers the 8500 will drive those as well.

I suspect that the POA-T10's are similar in quality to the amps in the 8500 but good to know that as they are 20+ years old if they die I should not need to replace them.

 

[satyab]

I do still have a HD DVD xe1 and if I have denon set to 4k enhanced in setup I get nothing but set it to standard I’m all good. Not too sure if it’s a bug but haven’t really bothered to get in touch with denon about it


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks. I will try that. Is the "4k enhanced" is global setup for all HDMI ports or we can control on HDMI Port/Input source level?