RXA2A is not a real Aventage receiver. It's just a rebadged V-series receiver, with an extra fifth penis at the bottom. The internals are 99% the same as the V6A.

You should never increase sub gain on the receiver into the positive value due to signal clipping, please don't recommend that.

Good analogy.

The whole notion of "increase center channel" level all stemmed from:

- Poor center channel placement. 9/10 times I see people place their center channel wrongly; pushed all the way back to the front wall, diffracting off the edges of their TV console, something blocking the way of their center channel, center channel not angled to ear level and is firing to the listener's crotch instead of their ears.

- Buying the typically bad designed MTM center channels. Most people don't realize that when a manufacturer does center channel, their design and build budget for a typical line up is mostly taken up by the L and R speakers. The center channel receives the least amount of attention, yet in a multi surround setup, the center channel is BY FAR the most important speaker in the system.


Personally, I don't have to ever increase my center channel's level. It's perfectly level matched with the L and R. It's a very simple rule to follow, but I'm baffled that people don't follow it.
Often times when people increase their center channel is because they can't hear what is being said on screen, this creates the issue when there's a soundtrack panning from front soundstage. It's always not seamless, with a very obvious bump when say someone's voice is panning from the L side of the screen to the right side, the middle portion will always sound obnoxious.

As for subs, some people like their subs "hot". So there can be an exception where the subs aren't level matched with the rest of the speakers. But in order to run subs hot without it sounding dreaded and boomy, one first needs to measure their room response in order to know just how much they can boost. This is something YPAO, Audyssey, and MCACC don't show you. ARC and DIRAC does. REW while not an auto-EQ per se does.

1) No, you should just run Audyssey and allow it to level match all your speakers for you. Whatever level the speakers are at before running Audyssey would be overwritten by it anyways. If you have a SPL meter, you can verify your speakers as being level matched after Audyssey is done. Make sure you follow the proper way of calibrating Audyssey, more info HERE.

2 and 3) This will not work. If you're going to have in-ceiling speakers for Atmos/DTSX duties, then your surround back (and side surrounds) has to be at bed level which is located at your ear level (1-2ft above your ear is still ok). The point is that surrounds and height speakers need to have a gap between them or otherwise you'll defeat the purpose of object based surround as there won't be proper separation of sound effects.

4) Atmos works with front heights and rear heights too btw, if you really want to dabble with Auro-3D you'll also need to add a middle height speaker directly above of you for the "voice of god" channel. This is up to you entirely. IMO, I really only use Auro-3D's upmixing because there are no native Auro-3D titles to begin with. It's nice for sure, but not really a big game changer.

5) At the very least, get an Nvidia Shield Pro. There are other higher end players like the IPUK 8592 Pro if you require a physical UHD disc player (I doubt anyone will be willing to part with their Oppo 203/205, no matter how much you offer them). But if you're running all digital, the Shield Pro is perfect for that.

PLEASE READ, IMPORTANT as you've left this very critical piece info out:
- You're not using any sub, this means that the 4300H will have to provide ALL the power to your speakers. You didn't state the size of your room, but depending on it and your preferred listening levels, know that your receiver may not be able to handle the load as low frequencies require a shit ton of power to reproduce. You also run the risk of clipping your speakers if you're fond of playing very loud. More over, the 4300H already runs pretty warm so if you're going down this route, make sure to have some active cooling for it.

- The 4300H out of the box ONLY does up to 9.2 channels. It cannot do 11.2 channels WITHOUT external amplification. This means that if you're going to do 11 channels, you MUST get at the very least an external 2 channel amp in order for the receiver to fully utilize its 11 channels processing capability.

1) Surround speakers don't have to perfectly at your ear level it's not music. In fact I've found that having it about 1ft above ear level creates a more enveloping experience instead of the speakers being very distinctive and calling attention to themselves.

2) Well try to acoustically treat it as well as you can, at least deal with the first reflection points.

3) Are you sure your old AVR has multi-channel input? If it does, I assume you're aware to know how to level match it to your current AVR so that you don't get volume misbalancing.

4) The expensive (and silly) way is to just buy those AC infinity enclosure fans. The better but not as nice looking way is to buy Noctua or Be Quiet! fans, zip tie them to the top of the AVR.

5) Yes the pre-out is active at all times for ALL channels. Only the latest 2020 models has an option to entirely shut off the internal amplifiers for a real pre-pro configuration.

6) I don't think you can mix audio channels with different HDMI inputs.

1) As long as there's a sufficient gap between bed layer surrounds and heights (4ft is the minimum IMO), then it'll be fine.

2) There are plenty of things that you can use as acoustic treatment. When I say treatment, I absolutely am not talking about foam or egg crates. I'm talking about panels with fabric of which you print a design so it looks like a portrait, but behind it is layered with fiberglass. Otherwise, you could also use everyday furniture like curtains, bookshelves, and rugs. There are plenty of ways to treat a room. I emphasize acoustic treatment because the sound you hear is mostly just reflected sound, not actually your speakers. That's why the room is vital.

3) As long as it has multi channel inputs, you're good to go. All you need to do is level match them properly.

5-6) What you are describing should work. However, do know that the inputs on the Denon is not of a very high quality. The SNR is very low, so you'll have to drive up the volume just to get satisfactory output. But by doing so, distortion then becomes an issue because the SINAD is pretty poor.

If you want controlled bass, you need to place the sub strategically rather than where it looks nice or most convenient. LFE waves are way longer than your room or any residential rooms for that matter. It's not so much about how the sub is built, it's how it is integrated into the room. That's the key to good bass.

Should have gotten an Nvidia Shield Pro instead. Not really that much more expensive. Plays everything you throw at it, with enough power to do whatever else in the future.

1. The mic placement for YPAO is in the manual.

2. You're comparing x1600H to an A4A. That's an unfair comparison and it's no wonder why you have the misconception of Denon = Honda, Yamaha = Lexus.

3. That's because the standard "Flat" PEQ artificially brightens the sound for no good reason what so ever.

4. Punchy where? Bass? 110w and 80w isn't even a 1db difference btw, also Yamahas always limit their receivers down to under 35w if you connect more than 5 channels.

5. The 4k120 firmware is already out, it is version 1.65. Still no VRR, QMS, ALLM and QFT support yet (which they advertise they do).

MultEQ-X is not bad, IMO as good as ARC Genesis but not as easy to use.

The HDMI 2.1 transition for the AVR market has not been smooth sailing.

Here's a brief breakdown as far as I can manage that I hope people will be aware of due to the kerfuffle HDMI 2.1 has caused over the last couple of years. DO NOT buy the wrong AVR now, it will be a COSTLY mistake:

Gen 1 HDMI 2.1
All started with Panasonic Solutions (not to be confused with Panasonic Electronics) offered the first to the market called HDMI 2.1 chipset to AVR manufacturers. These were colloquially known as the "Gen 1 HDMI 2.1" chips. There were 2 chips available, 40gbps for ONE input or 24gbps for multiple (up to 6) inputs.

Most HDMI 2.1 features did not work on the Gen 1 chipsets. Majority of HDMI 2.1 devices (Nvidia, AMD GPUs, PS5, Xbox Series X/S) all had black screen drop outs frequently, audio drop outs, certain resolution not being supported correctly and so on. This is majorly due to FRL (fixed rate link) not working as intended on the chipset.

Unfortunately those chipsets were NEVER tested properly with any official certification or devices. And also because COVID fucked the industry really hard, there was no solution other than... well, consumer bears the consequences.


Gen 2 HDMI 2.1
Then came Analog Devices, they provided a chipset that is capable of 40gbps with MULTIPLE inputs. Most importantly? It uses FRL properly, therefore all the HDMI 2.1 features like 4k120, VRR, 10-bit YCC 4:4:4, and HDR works as intended.

The bad news? Majority of the big AVR manufacturers bought a shit ton of gen 1 chipsets from Panasonic. Most of which are now just e-waste. The cost needs to go somewhere, to you - the consumers.

Currently the list of receivers that uses Analog Devices gen 2 HDMI 2.1 chipsets are:

- Yamaha RX-A4A, A6A, A8A
- Denon X2800H, X3800H, X4800H, A1H
- Marantz 2022 AVR models (new naming scheme which they have not officially revealed)
- Onkyo + Pioneer late 2021 AVR models
- Arcam AVR10, 20, 30 models

Then there are several pre-pros from the likes of Anthem, Trinnov, JBL, StormAudio and McIntosh that also houses the gen 2 chipsets.


Gen 3 HDMI 2.1
This is next on the road. What does this offer over gen 2? Well, full bandwidth 48gbps. The major addition with the full bandwidth that HDMI 2.1 offers is 12-bit YCC 4:4:4/Full RGB.

There are no consumer 12-bit displays on the market now, so it's actually a moot point. But going forward, 2023 is where we may start seeing a few 12 bit panels (the next marketing push, because 8k isn't a reality yet). Given a bit more time to mature, we should start seeing gen 3 HDMI 2.1 chipsets in late 2023 or 2024 AVRs.

Currently the only claimed (not tested) model to use the full gen 3 HDMI 2.1 chipset is Anthem's AVM90 pre-pro.

Glad that it worked out for you. But all these issues could have been avoided to begin with. The last time something idiotic like this happen in regards to HDMI was during the infamous Onkyo days.

Onkyo were arguably the first consumer AVR to provide HDMI inputs and outputs back in... 2007, IIRC?

They rushed that shit out so quickly that reliability was not even on their priority list to get right. Needless to say, thousands of Onkyo receivers during the 2007-2009 period had fried HDMI boards. Onkyo was forced to extend their warranty programme for customers, but unfortunately - the boards that got replaced were not that much better either.

The issue pretty much almost bankrupted Onkyo, which is one of the reasons they had to merge with Pioneer.

Then of course Onkyo is also the pioneer (haha pun?) of bullshitting specs on their receivers (which they also spread to Pioneer after the merge). Making up bullshit benchmark tests to come up with bigger bullshit numbers.

This post has been edited by SSJBen: Sep 28 2022, 01:46 PM

QMS and QFT are not supported by any source, sink or repeaters at this moment.

Currently there are no official certification for repeaters (AVRs and pre-pros) to get those features officially working. Honestly any HDMI 2.1 display can easily enable those features right now if they wanted to, it's just several metadata flags that needs to set. Not a complicated matter.

That said, IMO QMS at its current state isn't really a silver bullet. It reduces screen black outs related to source re-sync to sub 2 seconds. Sounds nice on paper, except there's a big gotcha: if the source changes anything else within its EDID like resolution, bit-depth, enabling of HDR and so on, the source and repeater STILL needs to do the old traditional way of HDCP handshake. The only scenario where QMS works the way it sounds is if the user changes the refresh rate on the source and/or the display, this is because QMS uses VRR to do the quick-sync handshake between devices.

So.... yeah, QMS is whatever right now lol. Not a big deal having it or not at all.

The direct successor to the V677 is the V6A.

Falls within your 3.5k budget, but unfortunately its HDMI 2.1 implementation is gimped since they're locked to 24gbps only. If you have no use for HDMI 2.1, then it's not a terrible choice per se considering how shit the ringgit is at the moment.

An alternative is a Denon x1700H but that breaches the RM3.5k a little bit.

Dirac Live Limited and Dirac Live Full is kinda pointless honestly speaking. While it can (emphasis on "can" not will) do a better job than Audyssey, it is pointless because neither of the Denon or Marantz receivers will have the much more important - Dirac Live Bass Control.

Dirac Live limited and full does not do multi sub optimization, where as Audyssey XT32 does. So that's the toss up.

The bass region is much, much more important to EQ (below 300hz) simply due to how long low frequency waves are. You cannot use Audyssey to optimize your subs, then use Dirac live full to PEQ the rest of your speakers above 300hz (up to say 1khz). They are mutually exclusive to one another.

This means the best of both worlds would be to use REW + minidsp (or any other external DSP) to manually optimize multi subs, then use DIRAC live to do its magic between 300hz to 1khz. That's a lot of money and not something the average joe knows how to do to begin with.


P.S - Dirac live limited and full is old news, even bass control is quite old. The new black magic Dirac is conjuring up is Dirac Spatial Room Correction. None of the Analog Devices SOC on the newest D+M AVRs is apparently powerful enough to support real time room correction.

This post has been edited by SSJBen: Oct 6 2022, 03:13 PM

Finally, a proper no-bullshit, no compromises HDMI 2.1 chipset: https://www.analog.com/en/products/adv7674....roduct-overview




Over 2 years late (will be 3 by the time manufacturers pick it up).

Too bad it's exclusive to Storm Audio only, at least for this year.

No one bringing Sony AVR in because there's no distro for it, meaning there is also no after-sales warranty support since Sony MY doesn't acknowledge their AVR as an official product in this country.

It is what it is.

Just go for the A6A, it's a better receiver than the Sony anyways.

This post has been edited by SSJBen: Feb 13 2023, 03:09 PM

It's unfortunate because previously Sony tried to dabble in Hi-Fi and home theater (~2016), no one cared enough to look at their products. They did bring in a few units of the DN1060 and DN1070, but sales for them were next to zero.

Everyone only knew how to look at a soundbar due to the fear of "too many cables, hassle to setup" mentality. Even their surprisingly well performing speakers - which I still think is best bang for the buck speakers today; the SS CS series didn't sell enough for Sony to bring in their higher end stuff.

A pair of SSCS5 bookshelves and a Sony DN1060 AVR back then was only RM3k, which is the same price as their flagship soundbar at the time (forgot the dumb model name), but the bookshelves performed in a whole different league. Yet people went for the soundbar because it has more "features" and more "speakers" lol.

No chance of it in SG either. That market there even smaller than here lol.