Worth upgrading AV amp?

[clockworks]

Lounge refurb just completed, putting all the AV gear back in.

I had to Google how to set up the Denon 3312 again, and was surprised to find out it's 10 or 11 years old!

It still works OK, but I wonder if things have moved on since I bought it?

Only used in 5.1 mode, new Samsung qled TV, Nvidia Shield for streaming, BT TV PVR, Dune network streamer for my own media.

Front speakers are a Monitor Audio SB3 passive soundbar, rears are MA ceiling units, sub is Quad. Room is about 13 feet square.

One consideration is running temperature, as all the electronics are in cabinets on the rear of the TV wall. Cabinets vent into the loft space above the room, but no fans fitted yet

[simon_harris]

At that age does it manage 4k connections? the only reason I had to change my last AV amp was because it couldn't distribute 4k signals

[TEKNOPUG]

I would definitely replace it if you have 4k streaming services.

Any of the current "X" range Denon AVR's will be an upgrade with 4k, Atmos, EArc, Audessy MultiEQ XT, HDMI 2.1 etc.

[clockworks]

I don't think it can handle 4k, so I've got the Nvidea Shield connected directly to the TV. Not sure if that will affect the audio signal though - optical out from the TV back to the amp?

The 3312 has what is probably the original version of Audessy, which doesn't seem to be that brilliant, particularly for setting up the sub. Level is way too low, and it thinks the sub is over 8 metres away - clever trick in a 4 metre room! Needs a fair bit of manual tweaking. Does the current iteration work better?

Since I'm only using 5.1, how high up the Denon product chain do I need to go?

[TEKNOPUG]

The basic X1700h will do everything you need. Does your sub activate via a 12v trigger?

[clockworks]

TEKNOPUG said:

The basic X1700h will do everything you need. Does your sub activate via a 12v trigger?

The whole AV setup gets switched on using Alexa and a Shelly relay.

[Douglas Quaid]

clockworks said:

I don't think it can handle 4k, so I've got the Nvidea Shield connected directly to the TV. Not sure if that will affect the audio signal though - optical out from the TV back to the amp?

The 3312 has what is probably the original version of Audessy, which doesn't seem to be that brilliant, particularly for setting up the sub. Level is way too low, and it thinks the sub is over 8 metres away - clever trick in a 4 metre room! Needs a fair bit of manual tweaking. Does the current iteration work better?

Since I'm only using 5.1, how high up the Denon product chain do I need to go?

Sub distance measurement on an avr doesn’t measure the distance, it measures the delay. Don’t change the measurement or your sub will be out of sync with the rest.

The more modern version does have better audyssey but to be fair if you’re only running a sound bar I’m not sure I’d bother until your current one breaks.

[Techno9000]

Moved from a 3313 to a 6400H late last year. Well worth it IMHO.

The 3313 had 4k passthrough, the 6400 upscales to 4k which makes a good effort with Freeview HD and BluRay material to my faux 4k projector.

The 6400 seems more detailed, with a better soundstage, it took some adjustment to get it there but very glad I made the jump.

HEOS is a hit with my technophobic wife, who is happy to stream our music from NAS to wired speakers in the kitchen.

[Panamax]

Don't put up with cheap kit that can't really deliver. A basic Anthem MRX540 amplifier at around £1,600 will blow that Denon into the weeds. Worth every penny.

[Lucid_AV]

clockworks said:

Lounge refurb just completed, putting all the AV gear back in.

I had to Google how to set up the Denon 3312 again, and was surprised to find out it's 10 or 11 years old!

It still works OK, but I wonder if things have moved on since I bought it?

Only used in 5.1 mode, new Samsung qled TV, Nvidia Shield for streaming, BT TV PVR, Dune network streamer for my own media.

Front speakers are a Monitor Audio SB3 passive soundbar, rears are MA ceiling units, sub is Quad. Room is about 13 feet square.

One consideration is running temperature, as all the electronics are in cabinets on the rear of the TV wall. Cabinets vent into the loft space above the room, but no fans fitted yet

clockworks said:

I don't think it can handle 4k, so I've got the Nvidea Shield connected directly to the TV. Not sure if that will affect the audio signal though - optical out from the TV back to the amp?

The 3312 has what is probably the original version of Audessy, which doesn't seem to be that brilliant, particularly for setting up the sub. Level is way too low, and it thinks the sub is over 8 metres away - clever trick in a 4 metre room! Needs a fair bit of manual tweaking. Does the current iteration work better?

Since I'm only using 5.1, how high up the Denon product chain do I need to go?

Things have moved on, but the question is whether your requirements justify spending on a new amp. Let's run through the differences and see how it looks:

Heat - All the Denons run hot. Marantz is the sister brand to Denon, and they run hot too. Yamahas run cooler, but whether there's something at a comparable spec for the price would need looking at. YPAO room EQ works well but isn't as smart as Audyssey MultEQ XT32 or Dirac. Pioneer has virtually disappeared. Onkyo went bankrupt but has resurfaced. Heat was their Achilles heel too, so you need to look into whether their product still has a problem with it. Their £900 AVR (TX-NR7100) does support DIRAC Live. Sony - their £1,000 AVR's back panel looks like the rear of a £299 AVR from 2015, and has Sony's proprietary room EQ. Arcam - flaky and expensive. Athem - sounds lovely, vg room EQ, but pricey by comparison.

Dolby Atmos / DTS:X - Atmos features in a lot of premium streaming content, but it needs additional speakers in order to tap into that sound format. DTS:X isn't as widely supported, it's more for 4K UHD disc content. However, DTS:X height effect can be created with a standard 5.1 speaker layout, which is a cool trick. It's also possible to process 5.1 audio in DTS Neural:X with similar benefits.

4K Dolby Vision (DV) HDR compatibility - again, pretty standard now, but do you have anything that needs audio processing as Dolby True HD or DTS HD Master Audio? That and maybe when Disney+ finally adds it to the IMAX Enhance Marvel titles is about the only real reason to push a signal through an AVR directly before passing it to the TV which will handle DV / HDR10 / HDR10+. Anything from regular TV, Sky/Virgin download, and from streaming has a version of Dolby Digital called DD+.

8K upscaling - not all models of AVR have this, and frankly it's a waste of time. Just like your 4K TV upscales anything lower resolution, so an 8K TV will do the same.

120Hz / VRR - If you're a gamer with a console and games that support this, and the audio from the console is multichannel PCM or something better than DD/DD+/DTS, then there's justification for putting the signal through the AVR. If the TV will pass multichannel PCM via eARC then you might get lower latency running the signal into the TV first.

eARC - an enhanced version of ARC that you have on the 3300. This will allow an eARC-compatible TV to send better than DD/DTS/DD+ audio to an eARC-compatible AVR. Great in principle, but the catch is that the TV manufacturers are selective about what audio formats they support as pass-thru.

The rest is window dressing. Stuff like app control, Heos (a form of multiroom audio connectivity to other Heos devices in Denon's product range), Auro-3D isn't a make or break deal.

You might have a good reason to change your AVR, and if you have then you should go ahead. The improvements in room EQ and the ability to run DIRAC on certain Denon and Onkyo AVRs is worth investigating, but I have to admit that the price of entry is high. On the other hand, if you've no plans to add speakers for Atmos, or pipe a 4K UHD BD player into your system, and you're not interested in multi-room then your current AVR might well still fit the bill. I would consider changing over to HDMI ARC though if for nothing more than the convenience of the TV automatically transferring TV speaker out to Home Cinema out and a few other neat tricks.

[page3]

It depends,

On my 82” screen I didn’t find upgrading to 4K worth the bother, although I did upgrade to a far superior 1080p screen.

In my livingroom I found 5.1 perfect and have no appetite for adding more speakers. I did however upgrade with room correction.

[andburg]

if you have enough inputs on the TV and can pass sounds back via optical or hdmi arc then i dont see the value in replacing.

[clockworks]

Thanks for the replies.

Looks like my current amp is probably good enough for my needs, so I'll put some effort into getting the best from it for now.

Heat: not really an issue for normal TV viewing, but might be when the volume is turned up while watching a film. Easy solution is to open the cupboard door, long term I can cut a vent in the bottom of the cabinet and fit a fan below the amp if necessary. There's already a big cutout in the back of the cabinet, and further vent holes at the top.

The amp is in one cupboard, everything else is in another cupboard next to it.
The media wall is a stud and board affair that separates the lounge area from the hallway area. No boarding above the studwork, so it vents into the loft.

Connections: currently the Nvidia Shield goes direct to the TV, all other sources go via the amp using HDMI. TV is optical back to the amp.
Should I change any of the connections?
TV has one eARC HDMI, and 3 normal ARC.

Audessy setup: I've just read the amp manual, noticed it says to use a tripod for the mic, and to ignore the "sub distance" reading. It also says to disable any settings on the sub itself, and leave Audessy to handle crossover and filtering. I'll do all this and try again.

Room accoustics: before the refurb, the room was very cluttered, with stuff on every wall. Very "clean" and minimalist now. That could explain the "toppy" sound?

Control: I'm using a Harmony Elite with the two supplied IR blasters, and a Shelly relay with Alexa to control power. Works perfectly, except for input switching on the TV.
For some reason, the TV isn't keen to switch between live TV and HDMI inputs directly, often going to the "smart hub" display instead, and I have to manually select the source. Is this a quirk with current Samsung TVs? Never had this issue with my old Samsung smart TV.

Edit: looking at the manual for the amp, the HDMI inputs are version 1.4a, and the maximum resolution mentioned is 1080p.

I guess this would cripple any video signals sent via the amp and onwards to the TV? The Shield and BT TV box are both 4k capable, so running those via the current amp would limit picture quality?

If I connect the 4k devices directly to the TV (Samsung QE65QN85C), will the TV's optical out to the amp give me the best sound that the source is capable of?

Edited by clockworks on Wednesday 16th August 10:04

[Lucid_AV]

clockworks said:

Connections: currently the Nvidia Shield goes direct to the TV, all other sources go via the amp using HDMI. TV is optical back to the amp.
Should I change any of the connections?
TV has one eARC HDMI, and 3 normal ARC.

re: ARC/eARC. It's not as you describe it. Your TV has 4 HDMI sockets. One of those (HDMI 3) is the eARC socket. The other three are just HDMI sockets.

eARC is backwards compatible with ARC. In a situation like yours with an ARC equipped AVR, then both devices operate at ARC level. This means DD/*DD+/**DTS/PCM stereo audio.

The caveats: * means if the AVR supports DD+. ** means if the TV supports DTS, and at what level which could be stereo DTS 2.0 or full 5.1 DTS

clockworks said:

Audessy setup: I've just read the amp manual, noticed it says to use a tripod for the mic, and to ignore the "sub distance" reading. It also says to disable any settings on the sub itself, and leave Audessy to handle crossover and filtering. I'll do all this and try again.

On the sub the crossover control should be set to maximum (the highest Hz number) or to LFE. Some subs buzz slightly on the LFE setting. If yours does, then backoff from LFE and settle on the highest Hz number.

Phase should be 0. Volume should be 50%. If the OSD from the amp tells you that the sub setting is +12dB then increase the sub volume to 75% and run the set-up again.

clockworks said:

Room accoustics: before the refurb, the room was very cluttered, with stuff on every wall. Very "clean" and minimalist now. That could explain the "toppy" sound?

Yes. Room EQ can only cope with so much. If there's a lot of sound bouncing off hard surfaces then you'll hear that in the acoustic signature of the room.

clockworks said:

Control: I'm using a Harmony Elite with the two supplied IR blasters, and a Shelly relay with Alexa to control power. Works perfectly, except for input switching on the TV.
For some reason, the TV isn't keen to switch between live TV and HDMI inputs directly, often going to the "smart hub" display instead, and I have to manually select the source. Is this a quirk with current Samsung TVs? Never had this issue with my old Samsung smart TV.

It's a quirk of TVs trying to be too smart.

clockworks said:

Edit: looking at the manual for the amp, the HDMI inputs are version 1.4a, and the maximum resolution mentioned is 1080p.

I guess this would cripple any video signals sent via the amp and onwards to the TV? The Shield and BT TV box are both 4k capable, so running those via the current amp would limit picture quality?

If I connect the 4k devices directly to the TV (Samsung QE65QN85C), will the TV's optical out to the amp give me the best sound that the source is capable of?

Where you connect various video devices depends on how far up the resolution ladder the picture gets from them. e.g. a non-streaming Blu-ray player or basic non-streaming HD PVR will do 1080p HD but not 4K. For those devices you would be just as well connecting them to the AVR to save on a bulk of cables going to the TV. It also leaves the TV sockets free for items that have or need a 4K-compatible video output.

clockworks said:

If I connect the 4k devices directly to the TV (Samsung QE65QN85C), will the TV's optical out to the amp give me the best sound that the source is capable of?

In your case the answer is probably yes. The exception would be if you ripped a load of your own Blu-rays and kept the audio as Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA.

Optical vs HDMI ARC for sound quality:

PCM stereo - the same. No difference.
Dolby Digital up to 5.1 - the same. No difference.
DTS up to 5.1 - the same. No difference.
DD+ - Optical can't do this one, but your amp can't play it anyway so it's a non-issue
Dolby TrueHD - neither optical nor ARC can do this, so no difference but for reasons of abstention.
DTS HD Master Audio - neither optical nor ARC can do this, so no difference but for reasons of abstention.
Multichannel PCM - neither optical nor ARC can do this, so no difference but for reasons of abstention.

ARC: You already have the connection in place for ARC. It's the HDMI cable from the AVR to the TV, but you do need to check a few things and make some setting changes.

• Is the HDMI cable fully wired so it will carry the ARC signal? You'll only find this out once you have made the rest of the changes. If ARC works then the answer is obviously yes. If not, and you're sure the setting changes have been done correctly, then you might need to upgrade.

• Is the HDMI cable plugged into HDMI 3 (eARC) at the TV?

• Is HDMI control (CEC) enabled on the AVR?

• Is ARC enabled on the AVR? (This requires HDMI CEC to be enabled first.

• Is HDMI control (CEC) enabled on theTV?

• Is ARC enabled on the TV? (This requires HDMI CEC to be enabled first.

• Is there a setting on the TV that directs it to send audio to a Home Cinema system? (If so, it will need to be enabled)

ARC vs optical - for you there's no difference in sound quality. It comes down to reducing the cable count and possibly making things work together a little better in terms of automation. Since you're using a Harmony then you've got a bit more automation control than most folk have with the factory remotes.

The thing is here it costs you nothing to try ARC. If it works better for you then great. If the Harmony doesn't like it, then you can always go back to Optical. It really is as simple as that.

[clockworks]

Thanks for the comprehensive reply. All a bit of a minefield these days - it was simple 30 years ago when I just stuck a Yamaha DSP and some extra speakers onto my Linn/Naim hifi!

If I'm understanding correctly, I could try connecting the TV's HDMI 3 to the amp's monitor 1 socket, and connecting the Shield and BT box directly to the TV, HDMI 1&2? Lose the optical, see what happens?

[clockworks]

Seeing the limitations of the current amp's audio formats, I bit the bullet and bought a Denon X2800H from Peter Tyson. They were offering a bundle deal with a pair of Polk front height/top speakers for an extra £30, so I bought those.

All set up and mostly working fine with all sources routed via the amp. We watched Iron Man (Disney streaming service) the night before with the old amp, and Iron Man 2 last night with the new amp. Massive improvement, so £700 well spent!

Not sure how much of the difference was down to the extra speakers, but they were just sat on top of the sub in the corner, left one pointing up and down the room, right one up and to the right. Far from ideal, but they did enough to make me think that an extra front pair are worthwhile.

Just one issue with the new amp, when watching normal broadcast TV:

TV HDMI 3 is connected to the amp's monitor 1 output, using a cable marked as "8k", so presumably fully-wired. Same make of cable is used between the Shield TV and amp, and it passes Atmos audio fine.
Since an optical cable was already in place, I connected that too.

I can switch TV audio between the 2 inputs by enabling/disabling the TV's optical output.
The optical connection sounds fine on broadcast TV, the amp switching to Dolby Surround. I only get stereo using the HDMI ARC though.

If I watch a Netflix movie using the TV's app, sound is breaking up and crackling via optical.

Nothing obvious in the amp settings.

[TEKNOPUG]

Remove the Optical first of all. Check that you have CEC Arc enabled on all devices. Enable it in the menu then perform a hard reset for each device. Check also whether the TV has an option of turning off TV audio and only output to AVR. I'm not familiar with Samsung TV's but that is the case with my Philips.

Edited by TEKNOPUG on Friday 18th August 14:45

[clockworks]

TEKNOPUG said:

Remove the Optical first of all. Check that you have CEC Arc enabled on all devices. Enable it in the menu then perform a hard reset for each device. Check also whether the TV has an option of turning off TV audio and only output to AVR. I'm not familiar with Samsung TV's but that is the case with my Philips.

Edited by TEKNOPUG on Friday 18th August 14:45

As far as I can tell, ARC is on and working to an extent, as a stereo signal is getting through.
The TV has options to select TV speakers, optical, or Bluetooth, but only one at a time. If I select TV speakers, that's when (I assume) the signal to the amp is going via HDMI.

The crackling via optical has stopped now, probably a temporary internet issue?

Further delving into the amp setup showed an option to configure TV sound input, hidden in the Setup Assistant menu. The only option available is optical though, no mention of HDMI.

[Lucid_AV]

Check the HDMI out settings on the TV. Choose bitstream/Dolby or whatever they're calling it. Choose a HD TV channel to make sure you're getting a 5.1 signal.

[clockworks]

I've disconnected the optical cable, now I get no sound at all!

The TV and amp are both set to use ARC. I've tried with HDMI control enabled and disabled.

At a loss now

Edit to add:

TV ARC is set to auto, audio format set to auto. Amp "TV audio" setup only displays optical as an option.

Is it possible that the supposedly 8k UHD cables that I bought from Amazon don't have the required wires?

Edited by clockworks on Friday 18th August 17:09