Post by afterburner on Mar 6, 2016 10:30:00 GMT -5
Well we moved into our new home (Still unpacking) and one of the first tasks I performed was assembling the "Stereo". At this time I only have the two towers/Center and Sub connected.
Right off the bat, this is my first experience with Denon. I am not one that is brand driven. I am driven by the needs at the time we are looking to add to our system. The other receiver we considered was the sister AVR from Marantz. We chose this Denon AVR-X4200W over the Marantz SR6010 because we felt the Denon 4200w fit our needs more closely.
Please note. We are not using the Denon to power any of our speakers at this time. We purchased the Denon X4200W to be the head unit, allowing the two XPA-5's to run our speakers. We may place the Center on the Denon and or the high front speakers at some point. We are trying the room out (How wee feel the furniture needs to be plaved for our needs) and seeing how it responds to the 5.1.4 first.
First things first.
While Denon advertises that the setup is easy, they are most likely referring to "Once all your 7.2.2 speakers are connected". Because I had to hit the web to learn...
In order for the Sub to become active in stereo mode, you must change the default setting to the front speakers from "Large" to "Small".
Now in doing this, the gain is reduced, and now we have to "Turn the knob" to around 60 (Out of I believe 90) to have room filled sound. I have NOT taken the time to use any db increase to tuned anything at this point as most of our furniture does not show up until next week (Five entire rooms worth of new furniture).
That said. One feature I "Really" enjoy with this Denon. I did not have to manually program this feature!!! When I went through the easy setup, the Denon AVR automatically programmed itself to our Sony TV. So... When I turn the TV on for early mornings, the TV uses its own audio abilities. As soon as any of us power the Denon X4200W, the Sony TV volume is zeroed out and only the AVR is now producing audio. Once we turn off the AVR, TV volume is right back where it was earlier. The AVR is not "Muting" as no "Mute" is appearing on the screen and no "Mute" hissing is coming from the TV. It goes dead quiet. I am not sure exactly what the AVR is doing, but we really like that feature.
As far as sound/hissing/quality of sound.
Our Onkyo TX-NR809 that this receiver replaced was not in the same league as this Denon AVR-X4200W. I am not fooling myself in thinking it was. However it did do what we needed it to do until it died. And that Onkyo was purchased to gain the HDMI connections and it replaced a high end harman kardon (Our first true dual purpose AVR, however it did not have HDMI connections) we purchased new when the then Yamaha (The Yamaha's life was for music) needed to go to the "Stereo room".
So... We do recognize every room changes how anything sounds. We realize that every ear is different. We also know emotion can at times override reality. Not to mention what I call the "Pocket book effect" that we see some folks fall into. Whereas, if my pocket book paid for it, I will be instantly in love and defend it to the death.
This is not the latter.
This AVR is providing what my and my wife's ears believe to be "Honest" sound. There are some synthetic sounds removed and replaced with how they recorded them (If that makes sense). I do believe part of the cleaner sound we are perceiving is from the 13' wide front sound stage we have. All our previous sound stages had been in the 10' range. As such we are now finally able to place the speakers farther apart instead of right next to the TV and Center.
The controls of the Denon AVR-X4200W are refreshing. Easy to work with and simple to understand.
We are looking forward to finding an installer to run our speaker wires and seeing more of what this unit can do.
One other note.
We are not pleased with our SVS PB13-Ultra at the moment. Again, just plugged it in and have not yet tuned anything. However, with the Onkyo I had to reduce the SVS (On the sub itself) by 6db's to help it match the old room and rest of the system. I have taken the SVS back to zero. And it seems flat and not there. I am getting the same bass response from it, as I was when I only had the two Towers and Center running while I was researching why the SVS was not powering up.
Room size/reference... 13' wide 31' long. Lowest ceiling point at the front and back walls (13' wide points) is 9' with a vaulted ceiling height of about 16'
Right off the bat, this is my first experience with Denon. I am not one that is brand driven. I am driven by the needs at the time we are looking to add to our system. The other receiver we considered was the sister AVR from Marantz. We chose this Denon AVR-X4200W over the Marantz SR6010 because we felt the Denon 4200w fit our needs more closely.
Please note. We are not using the Denon to power any of our speakers at this time. We purchased the Denon X4200W to be the head unit, allowing the two XPA-5's to run our speakers. We may place the Center on the Denon and or the high front speakers at some point. We are trying the room out (How wee feel the furniture needs to be plaved for our needs) and seeing how it responds to the 5.1.4 first.
First things first.
While Denon advertises that the setup is easy, they are most likely referring to "Once all your 7.2.2 speakers are connected". Because I had to hit the web to learn...
In order for the Sub to become active in stereo mode, you must change the default setting to the front speakers from "Large" to "Small".
Now in doing this, the gain is reduced, and now we have to "Turn the knob" to around 60 (Out of I believe 90) to have room filled sound. I have NOT taken the time to use any db increase to tuned anything at this point as most of our furniture does not show up until next week (Five entire rooms worth of new furniture).
That said. One feature I "Really" enjoy with this Denon. I did not have to manually program this feature!!! When I went through the easy setup, the Denon AVR automatically programmed itself to our Sony TV. So... When I turn the TV on for early mornings, the TV uses its own audio abilities. As soon as any of us power the Denon X4200W, the Sony TV volume is zeroed out and only the AVR is now producing audio. Once we turn off the AVR, TV volume is right back where it was earlier. The AVR is not "Muting" as no "Mute" is appearing on the screen and no "Mute" hissing is coming from the TV. It goes dead quiet. I am not sure exactly what the AVR is doing, but we really like that feature.
As far as sound/hissing/quality of sound.
Our Onkyo TX-NR809 that this receiver replaced was not in the same league as this Denon AVR-X4200W. I am not fooling myself in thinking it was. However it did do what we needed it to do until it died. And that Onkyo was purchased to gain the HDMI connections and it replaced a high end harman kardon (Our first true dual purpose AVR, however it did not have HDMI connections) we purchased new when the then Yamaha (The Yamaha's life was for music) needed to go to the "Stereo room".
So... We do recognize every room changes how anything sounds. We realize that every ear is different. We also know emotion can at times override reality. Not to mention what I call the "Pocket book effect" that we see some folks fall into. Whereas, if my pocket book paid for it, I will be instantly in love and defend it to the death.
This is not the latter.
This AVR is providing what my and my wife's ears believe to be "Honest" sound. There are some synthetic sounds removed and replaced with how they recorded them (If that makes sense). I do believe part of the cleaner sound we are perceiving is from the 13' wide front sound stage we have. All our previous sound stages had been in the 10' range. As such we are now finally able to place the speakers farther apart instead of right next to the TV and Center.
The controls of the Denon AVR-X4200W are refreshing. Easy to work with and simple to understand.
We are looking forward to finding an installer to run our speaker wires and seeing more of what this unit can do.
One other note.
We are not pleased with our SVS PB13-Ultra at the moment. Again, just plugged it in and have not yet tuned anything. However, with the Onkyo I had to reduce the SVS (On the sub itself) by 6db's to help it match the old room and rest of the system. I have taken the SVS back to zero. And it seems flat and not there. I am getting the same bass response from it, as I was when I only had the two Towers and Center running while I was researching why the SVS was not powering up.
Room size/reference... 13' wide 31' long. Lowest ceiling point at the front and back walls (13' wide points) is 9' with a vaulted ceiling height of about 16'
