Moving up from Harman Kardon AVR 247 to Denon???

[lparsons21]

I posted this over at AVSForums but haven't gotten any feedback. Maybe here??

I currently have the Harman Kardon AVR247 in my setup. Inputs to it are (2) DirecTV HDDVRs via component Video/Digital Audio, Apple TV via HDMI and a Sony BluRay via HDMI. I want to have all of it via HDMI and add my HDDVD player back into the mix.

I've been looking fondly at some of the newer HKs, but have been reading the xx13 Denon thread 'til my eyes are bleeding and am thinking maybe a Denon 1913 or 2113ci should be on the list.

Here's some things important to me, some comments and suggestions are very welcome.

1. Sound quality - I'm very enamored of the 'warmth' of HKs sound quality, how is the Denon going to stack up in comparison?

2. Video upscaling - this is very important and is at the top of the list. There are some channels still in SD that have programs that are very good. Watching them from my 54" panny plasma is not very good straight from the HDDVR to the TV nor as a pass through signal via the HK. I can get acceptable, but not great, viewing by setting the HDDVR to 720p and then massaging the video in the HK before sending it to the TV.

How is the Denon video massaging? Better or worse than the HK?

3. Speaker arrangement currently is 7.1. I have Cerwin-Vega satellites and a 12" Velodyne subwoofer that I will be keeping. But I've been reading up on changing that to add 'height' speakers instead of the classic 7.1 setup. Since there is literally very little that is done in 7.1, it seems like a reasonable consideration. But I have no feel for how that sounds in practice. Comments about that would help.

I have no way of listening to a Denon as the local Best Buy is very open and testing SQ is nearly impossible in the store.

 

[jayn_j]

I agree entirely with you on testing at BB. Amazon has a liberal return policy and you can purchase to audition and then return without a hassle.

I don't have much experience with the newer HK stuff. My last HK receiver was circa 1980. I have had no problems with the Denon sound quality though and hav3e generally found it uncolored and accurate, especially at the price point. Both boxes will also perform video upscaling and do a clean job of it.

 

[lparsons21]

Thanks for the suggestion of using Amazon as a test bed. I've thought of that and may yet do it.

I've had Yamaha, Sony and Harman Kardon receivers over the years. The Yamaha and Sony were quite similar in sound produced. Nothing really bad about it, just lacking something that the HKs seem to have. Usually called 'warmth' (hell of a techie term huh?), I think it is all in the bass. With the HKs I've had the bass is not only heard but felt, even at pretty low levels. I've not had that experience with the Yammys or Sonys.

 

[teachsac]

Yamahas are much warmer than Denon. Denons can be bright. Yamahas have very nice amps. I'm thinking about the Yamaha 3020. Denons are great though and will do everytihng you need. I'm using the 2113 in my bedroom right now and have had the 889 in the past.

S~

 

[lparsons21]

I've had Yamahas in the past and didn't find them very warm compared to the HK. In fact, I got a Yammy and tried it out, then got the HK and kept the HK. It was all about the sound. There was nothing wrong with the Yamahas, and they do have a good reputation for build quality.

Further research on my part leads me to believe that if I like the HK sound, I better stay with HK. I did lots of reading in various forums and when the comparisons are made, the bottom line was that if the HK sound was a big deal to the user, then only HK would do. And then I looked at the Denon 2113ci's specs. With a 500 watt power supply, there is no way it makes the power they are rating.

I'm most likely going to get either the HK AVR2600 or 3600, both have 1405Watt power supplies and given HK's somewhat conservative power ratings, I know they will both be plenty powerful enough.

thanks for the comments.

 

[jevans64]

The Denon 2113ci is going to have better video processing than Faroudja DCDi but not as good as they had when they used Anchor Bay. I agree on the power output of the Denon. Denon has skimped a lot on power supplies in the last few years. HT Labs shows that the 2113ci only does 52.3 watts x 7 with 0.1% THD.

HT Labs only has the HK AVR 3650 up but it gets pretty bad marks. 7 channel output is only 43.6 watts at 0.1% THD. I'm not sure what the relationship is between the 3650 and 3600, but the 3600 is a lower-end model.

If you decided to go Denon you could save a bundle by looking for a 2312ci. You'll get more power, more inputs, but lose 4K upscaling. You can still easily find them new-in-box for $600.

You could even take it up to a 3312ci for $750 NiB from Electronics Expo. You'll get pre-outs, for adding external amps, in addition to Front Height or Front Wide speaker support.

 

[lparsons21]

Thanks for the feedback.

The HK 3600 is like the Denon 2312ci in that it is a model year older. And like the Denon's, it is some steps forward and some steps backward. I suppose that is to keep the costs down to keep the selling prices around what they think things will sell for. I went and looked at the HK3650's owner's manual and it shows what I suspected, much smaller power supply, in this case, 450W compared to the 3600's 1500W.

In looking at the various models of the Denon and HK lines, the differences as you move from the HK26xx to HK36xx are like the move from 19xx to the 21xx series. All get modest power increases from one to the next, and all give you more connections. My current HK247 is rated @50W/channel, all channels driven, so any of these are going to be somewhat more powerful, but not as much as it appears on the surface because Denon doesn't rate theirs that way, and the current 2650/3650 from HK don't either. I think HK changed how they did it in this year's models, as in the past HK always rated their with all channels driven.

Seems I need to do a bit more research. Good thing all my AV stuff is working well now!

 

[jevans64]

Thanks for the feedback.

The HK 3600 is like the Denon 2312ci in that it is a model year older. And like the Denon's, it is some steps forward and some steps backward. I suppose that is to keep the costs down to keep the selling prices around what they think things will sell for. I went and looked at the HK3650's owner's manual and it shows what I suspected, much smaller power supply, in this case, 450W compared to the 3600's 1500W.

In looking at the various models of the Denon and HK lines, the differences as you move from the HK26xx to HK36xx are like the move from 19xx to the 21xx series. All get modest power increases from one to the next, and all give you more connections. My current HK247 is rated @50W/channel, all channels driven, so any of these are going to be somewhat more powerful, but not as much as it appears on the surface because Denon doesn't rate theirs that way, and the current 2650/3650 from HK don't either. I think HK changed how they did it in this year's models, as in the past HK always rated their with all channels driven.

Seems I need to do a bit more research. Good thing all my AV stuff is working well now!

That about sums it up. Almost every manufacturer is making compromises to make things more affordable in this economy. Denon did away with toroidal transformers in favor of IEC in all but their top model. I have a Denon AVR 5308ci which I just spent a grand on to upgrade but it is showing its age a little bit. I think the transformer in that one is a 1000 VA. The Denon 2-channel rating is 150 wpc and HT Labs benched it all channels driven at about 146 watts with 0.1% THD. It has amplifier pre-outs, so I just added an Emotiva XPR-5 which is 400w x 5 all channels driven and has a 3.3k VA transformer. LOL I just use the Denon to power the rear surrounds and height speakers. Getting one with pre-outs will future-proof you a little bit as long as you have room for an amp. There isn't really anything new coming down the pike in home theater except 4k displays and Dolby Atmos, which will be greater than 11.2 surround. I think I'm good for 2 or 3 more years and the Emotiva amp can last a long time as long as I keep buying receivers with pre-outs.

I did have a chance to look at the HK 3600 manual since I was wondering where you were getting those transformer ratings. The receiver is likely an AB design and is probably somewhere at 50% efficient so the ACTUAL transformer is probably in the neighborhood of 700 VA. If it is Class H then it would be about 70% and Class D would be about 85%. 700 VA is still better than what Denon is using now. You would have to have the service manuals to find out for sure. That is still plenty enough for the 85 wpc all channels driven HK is claiming.

 

[lparsons21]

The service manual is available to download from HK. I got it and it shows it to be 890W, so still plenty and of course, there isn't much other info about that transformer as it is a HK p/n from what I gather.

Yeah, all these mfgs are having a tough time getting the gear to sell. I guess it is cheaper to add some features, twiddle the power ratings a bit and shove them out the door. And of course, they've almost all moved mfg to China.

As it sits right now, I think I'll keep the AVR247 I have for a bit longer until I just can't stand it any more. I moved the 4 port HDMI switch back into the mix, so I now have a total of 5 HDMI ports which fills that bill. And the 247 has plenty of power for my Cerwin-Vega satellites and the Velodyne Sub is plenty hefty for me. Using the Harmony 1 to control this all makes it pretty dead simple, even if that little HDMI switcher doesn't look so good in the rack.

Since it seems I can't get both a great video massager and the HK sound in one box, it is not as important as it was a few days ago.

 

[jevans64]

If it is any consolation the AVR 3600 uses Faroudja DCDi Cinema, which is better than the DCDi Edge found in most TV sets. Folks are claiming that DCDi Cinema isn't better than HQV Reon VX ( A medium-level Silicon Optix processor ), Marvell Qdeo, ABT 2015, or IDT Vida. IDT is what became of Silicon Optix and Terenex when they went belly-up and is a successor to the HQV Reon VX chip. Most agree that it is a very close competition though and something better will likely be top dog next year. It is Marvell's turn this year with Oppo being the major user of this processor. Denon uses an Analog Devices processor. I don't know much about that one ( ADV 8002-1 ) other than Denon has been using the AD SHARC 21xxx DSPs for YEARS. These video processors really only come into play when you are converting SD to the TV's native resolution. HDMI is usually just passed through to the TV. I guess we are seeing all this video processor competition because of 4k upscaling.

I haven't even gotten around to doing a comparison between the Silicon Optix Realta sxT2 in the Denon 5308ci and the Marvell Kyoto G2H in the Oppo BDP-103 on DVDs.

 

[lparsons21]

When reading about the various video massagers, opinion of which is better is all over the place with plenty of fans and naysayers to go around. With many of these newer AVRs, if you want the OSD to show up at the higher res, it has to not be using bypass, which means the video massager is most likely always doing something.

In my setup, changing to the HDMI switch and bringing everything in via HDMI has given me a bit better SD to 720p upscale/conversion. Not sure why that is since component video and HDMI video are both coming from the HR24 @720p as that is the way I have them set. Current setting is Native On, 720p/1080i/p, making SD come out of the HR @720p. The reason I use 720p for that is in the AVR247, it only massages up to 720p because that was the way it was mfg'd at the time. Current models take it to 1080p.

If I were to upgrade to another HK, it would be the 2600 as it has all the inputs and outputs that I need. The 3600 brings a little more power, but power isn't an issue as the 247 @50W/channel is more than good enough for my setup. And it brings multi-channel inputs and outputs (analog), that I have no need for. The xx50 series are not really much of a step up, adding mostly Dolby IIz (height), which I don't use anyway. And I can get the 2600 as a factory refurb from HK (on Ebay) for $300 with a 2 year warranty. That represents a significant savings over any of the newest models, with little reason to get the latest and greatest in the series.

Unless/until I'm willing to spend significantly more money to move further up the food chain, I'm finding less reason to buy newer.

Thanks for all the info you've provided, it really has helped in getting to a decision.

 

[lparsons21]

Well I finally came to a decision about upgrading. Ordered the Denon 2113ci.

I just got my AVR-2113ci today and you can officially color me IMPRESSED!!


First let me get the bad and dumb out of the way. Got it all connected just the way I wanted, power on, no video! Fiddled with connectors and finally called Denon. They tried to help and even suggested to send it back since it seemed mine was defective. Of course that was after they kept insisting that it needed HDMI 1.4 cables. I didn't argue with them, but new that was just bogus info. I was just about to box it up and send it back when I thought to try some other things.


Now for the dumb part, or at least it seems so. I had selected an HDMI input that had nothing connected at that time, so I decided to select the Satellite tuner. Voila`, I got me some video! But that brings up a question. I didn't see anything in the quick setup guide that indicated that I needed any inputs connected to do a setup, what did I miss?


Now for the good!


Audio :
Frankly I wasn't expecting this unit to sound as good as the HK AVR247 it was replacing, but I was pleasantly blown away! The highs and middles were crisper than the HK and the bass was strong without being overpowering. That was after running the 6 position Audyssey setup. It set the speaker sizes correctly, but the crossovers seemed a bit low @60 for some. I changed that to 80, hopefully that won't mess things up.


Video :
This was the main thrust of the upgrade. I wanted to get better upscaling to 1080p from the few satellite SD channels I view. The 2113 does a superb job of this. No it doesn't make SD look like HD, but it sure makes it look a whole lot better and the scaling and massaging of the SD video is much better than the HK's.


I'll most likely fiddle with changing speakers around to try out front heights, but that isn't certain as I am very pleased with this unit so far.

 

[gdarwin]

Love my Denons...

 

[mike123abc]

It is just another reason why high end audio is dying off... The advances in common equipment has gotten to the point where it easily eclipses much of the former high end equipment.

 

[lparsons21]

Mike that is so true. I wasn't interested in high end audio, but I'm certainly pleased that this lower mid-range box is as good as it is. When I was reading about all sorts of equipment, the differences between the entry level and the top level were in the number and types of connections they had. For instance, on this box I have 6 HDMI inputs, but only one component video input, one optical and one coax digital audio input and a few 'stereo' audio inputs. Since all of what I have is connected via HDMI, this is a plus for me.

I had considered going to a model with 7.1 channel analog inputs and outputs like my HK AVR-247 has, but I never used them with it and thought why do I care if they are there? Only the techie in me made me even consider it.

As you move up or down from my model, you get more or less connections. Frankly for my use I could have gone for the AVR-1913 and most likely been pleased also. For the difference in price, I got a 3 vice 2 year warranty and Audyssey EQXT instead of Audyssey EQ which was reported as being a worthwhile consideration.

and of course, the upper end still has lots of things that attracts some to them. Build quality, much better and humptyer power supplies and other things. But there is so much offered in the lower end that I'm sure many with higher end gear do some consideration of them when they need/want to replace their current gear.

One unit that really got me reading and thinking was the Sherwood-Newcastle R-972 because of the Trinnov audio equalization. Everything I read just raved about how well that worked. But this was a unit that came to market at $1800 and now sells new for $600 or so because of so many issues with it. Essentially the Trinnov EQ was utterly fantastic, but the unit itself wasn't from a quality standpoint. Basically if you got a good one, it was great. OTOH, too many didn't get good ones.

 

[lparsons21]

A little followup since I've had this long enough to really find out what a jewel it is.

Audio performance - While I was very impressed with the overall performance at volume, I'm finding myself even more impressed with low volume performance. Denon has a very active Dynamic Volume in it that really makes the low volume performance just amazing. With the HK and even the Sony AVRs, I had to push volume to get the dialog up enough to hear it well. Not the case with this Denon, and it still gives the full, rich sound that higher volumes produce.

Video performance - Great is just a good way to describe it. I does a wonderful job of upscaling and massaging the video, and as I said before, it doesn't make SD look as good as HD, but it improves it much better than my TV, DVR or previous AVRs did. One thing that it does show is how much bit starving sources are doing. While D*'s SD is pretty much bit starved, my local CW station brings bit starving to a new low. There is a very distinct difference between SD from D* and SD from that station. In both cases the Denon is doing a good job, but it can't do a whole lot for that CW station.

 

[king3pj]

2. Video upscaling - this is very important and is at the top of the list. There are some channels still in SD that have programs that are very good. Watching them from my 54" panny plasma is not very good straight from the HDDVR to the TV nor as a pass through signal via the HK. I can get acceptable, but not great, viewing by setting the HDDVR to 720p and then massaging the video in the HK before sending it to the TV.

How is the Denon video massaging? Better or worse than the HK?

I thought Directv HDDVRs had a native resolution pass through option. I know my old one did when I had Directv. If yours does and you want your AVR to handle all scaling you may want to consider selecting that instead of 720p. What you are doing is having the Directv receiver convert all 480i and 1080i channels to 720p first and then having your AVR convert that 720p to 1080p. Native would just send the signal to your AVR as is and let it scale to 1080p. It probably doesn't make a huge difference but one conversion has to be better than two.

I do the same thing but I set to 1080i because most channels besides the Fox and ABC/Disney owned channels are broadcast in 1080i. This means all 480i and 720p channels are converted twice on my system. I wouldn't do this if I had a choice though. I was disappointed to find out that Dish doesn't have native resolution pass through on their receivers. My Onkyo TX-NR609 has the excellent Marvell Qdeo video processing chip that scales all the way to 4K. If I only had a 4K display. Unfortunately Dish doesn't let me get the full benefit of this chip.

 

[lparsons21]

You're coming in late to this discussion. I am using Native On and all resolutions and just passing the signal as Direct is sending it to the AVR and letting it do all the upscaling.

At the time of the post you are replying to was posted, I was using an older Harman Kardon unit that had some limitations.

 

[king3pj]

That makes sense. I just thought I would point it out in case anyone was still doing this. Now if only Dish would give us the option. I understand the average person might not like it because it takes a second for most TVs to adjust to a resolution switch. I just don't get why they can't leave native off by default and give those of us that want it the option to turn it on.