Against which Denon/Marantz model? Be a bit more specific.

Actually it was a general question when I posted. my circle of friends generally are on denon/marantz hence was wondering. Since on paper the spec for yamaha looks solid and generally has higher power, hence was wondering how it translate to real world. I suppose to go Desa home for a view, unfortunately we are still under mco, hence didnt want to risk it crossing district.

These couple of days was looking at A3080, vs Denon x4500, x4700, X7200WA and x6700. compared to those yamaha is almost half the price.

Thanks alot guys for your valuable input.

A3080's direct competitor from Denon was the x4500h and from Marantz it was the SR7013.

Be aware that all 3 models are from late 2018, so over 2 years old now and if you're looking for the latest HDMI 2.1 features then neither of them support it fully. They do have eARC passthrough, but that's about it. If HDMI 2.1 isn't your concern, read on....

I was in the same predicament few years ago, choosing between an A3080 or x4500h. They were similarly priced, Yamaha usually for a few hundred less.
Reason I went with A3080 was because:

+ I valued the manual YPAO PEQ over Audyssey at the time, this was when Audyssey haven't had the app which allowed for manual PEQ adjustments
+ Audyssey's better sub-EQ is of little use to me since I'm already employing bass EQ with a minidsp
+ The A3080 ran MUCH cooler than the x4500h, it's a night and day difference. It's only half a joke when people said you could boil an egg on top of Denon/Marantz AVR...
+ The build quality of the A3080 is better overall, it doesn't necessarily transfers to better sound per se but I always like higher build quality
+ Denon x4500h had several HDMI compatibility issues, while they were mostly fixed over time with firmware updates, I didn't want to bother waiting

While the Yamaha A3080 has more power on paper, it's really next to no difference in reality. The power ratings are 2 channels rated remember? 10-20w of difference is like... barely 1db. So I don't really look at power when it comes to AVRs with plenty of channels.

The A3080 is still a good AVR now a days, as long as you don't need HDMI 2.1 input. Do be aware that there are some batches of A3080 that are suffering from a channel distortion hump, this was reported by quite a few owners at AVSForum. Basically what happens is that at random intervals, an extremely loud "thump" will play on ALL your speakers at maximum volume. This has the potential to blow out the voice coil if your speaker's driver isn't very capable to begin with. It's not a widespread issue but it's something to keep in mind if you were to go with the A3080.

That's nice to hear. Everyone says Yamaha AVR is a lot cooler than Denon. I used to have a Yamaha RX-V659, which I then upgrade to Denon 3312. IMO, Both are equally hot.

perhaps they just like the simplicity of Audyssey.

This post has been edited by Skylinestar: Feb 20 2021, 10:16 AM

Price comparison Yamaha is always cheaper as is made in Taiping 😁

My Denon is always running hot til i put cheap 6 cooler fan on top. Too many things electronically squeeze together in a compact space makes heat cannot disperse accordingly. Before put fan scared to watch 2 movies in a row.

Location doesn't matter as long as not made in USA or EU area.
Sony made in Malaysia but not cheap.
D&M mostly made in Vietnam.

Those are several generations old. Yamaha changed their platform in 2010, units since then ran quite a bit cooler because of the bigger heatsinks and they began to substantially limit power beyond 3 channels.

Denon has and will always be hot due to the way their AVR is arranged.

Thanks guys for your valuable inputs!

Just realized one of my cousin had A2080 so went to play around with it, as many of you indicated, the manual controller on YPAO is just superb, I liked the sound as well, kinda more sharper than D&M and yes cooler as well, but its expected, since Yamaha engineers manage to use smaller power supply to power it up to that extend! A3080 is only 490W compared to other which runs around 700W.

Anyways, finally bit the bullet and going with a little older model Denon X8500H since it has 13.2ch.

End game model. Later on you can send in to Denon to upgrade the HDMI board for 2.1 functionality if you need it.

Do check out Ratbuddysey though, makes it as powerful as manual YPAO.

Thanks thanks...when I saw the YPAO, it was very similar to my technics (but obviously not on phone, have to do it on screen, but every single fields can be tweaked, that was sweet.

Im still new on zoning, etc, hence need to learn on it as well.

Now anxiously waiting for delivery.....

From your experience how do you would setup 2 front speaker firing all the time for both movie and music?

Thus far, I know I have 2 option either make my second pair as Zone2 or just straight fire it from the speaker output by setting it large, but Im not sure what are its loss and gain, until I play around.

This post has been edited by VeeJay: Feb 20 2021, 06:40 PM

u want 2 pairs of front speakers playing at the same time? why?

Party mode yo, haha.

Aiyo, really difficult to answer, which I had been asked gazillion times, to be frank, maybe its just an old habit from tons of years ago! Since my ears are so tuned to it, I just seem cant leave without the extra power. Probably I like the bass it provides, its similar to modern term of bi-amping, which I thought of using, unfortunately my amp is fried.

Thanks mate...hahaha

2 most straight forward ways to do it:

1) Set second pair of speakers to zone 2 pre out.

2) Downsample surround tracks to 2.0 PCM, connect second pair of speakers to surround channels, enable "multi stereo" mode on receiver.

no need zone 2.
just use multi ch stereo or biamp mode

Interesting. First time seeing this. Have fun

for music only or for movies? that multi fronts gonna spoil the eq and sound stage

Guys, a quick question. How do you gauge the correct Reference Level of an AV system?

you mean to balance all speakers output? or to judge if ur 0db = 85db?

This post has been edited by kevinlim001: Feb 22 2021, 01:28 PM