Denon AVR-X3600H 9.2 Channel AV Receiver Review & Comments

So the the 3600 and the 4500 are now at the same price,which one should I get?

X3600H is 899£ at PT with 3year warranty. X4500H still 999£ with 5year warranty! At this time last year X4400H was 799£ lowest i think. Because no new model (X4600H) this year the price is kept higher. Black Friday is coming soon...
 
I see peter tyson have dropped the x4500 with 5 yr warranty from £1149 to £999 today and also the X3600 with 3yr warrabty from £999 to £899 so a close thing which one to go for hopefully a bit more discount still to come for black friday.:D
 
I have gone for denon 4500 after trying 2500 and 3600 and paid same price as 3600 ,999£
I dont regret
 
If you don't want to wait until black Friday you buy now .
If prices drop further on black Friday by Peter tyson they will refund
 
Doesn’t the 4500 possess Denon’s AL32 processing whereas the 3600 doesn’t?
If you look at pics of the units with lids removed, the Marantz 6013/14 has the same main board layout as the Denon 4500, the Denon 3500/3600 doesn’t.
 
I am obviously looking at this as someones whos into gaming and as such i will hold off and wait for next years model in the hope of full implementation of full bandwidth 48gps HDMI 2.1 connections
 
Doesn’t the 4500 possess Denon’s AL32 processing whereas the 3600 doesn’t?
If you look at pics of the units with lids removed, the Marantz 6013/14 has the same main board layout as the Denon 4500, the Denon 3500/3600 doesn’t.
That is true. But what does the AL32 processing do?
 
I have gone for denon 4500 after trying 2500 and 3600 and paid same price as 3600 ,999£
I dont regret
So after trying the 3600 what made you go for the 4500 I can see the price WAS the same but now the 3600 is £100 less. Did you notice any difference sound wise.

the 4500 for me has a few plus points like Auro a few more watts and better power supply, slightly heavier and 2 line display but missing the Dolby Height Virtualization which may be useful if I don't want to use Atmos speakers straight away.
 
last year I bought liked the processing and returned 4500 because of E arc issues with Sky Q.

I thought about height virtualization but I want to go for ceiling atmos at some stage.
all the other features as you mentioned are better than 3600
 
in-art-close-icon-128x128-16481b937f87b244a645cdbef0d930f8.png


–– ADVERTISEMENT ––​





No receiver launched this year will include HDMI version 2.1 so what is there to be surprised about?

No other receiver has HDMI version 2.1 and no receiver will be or is scheduled to get it until next year. I'd summise that they are awaiting the manufacturer of enough HDMI version 2.1 chipsets to facilitate their production lines and intended output? THere's no real insentive for any manufacturer to intoduce HDMI version 2.1 just yet and there will not really be any need for it until late next year. Even then, this will only be of any real use to those purchasing one of the next generation of games consoles. There isn't and probably will never be 8K disc based media.

The inclusion of eARC on an AV receiver also helps negate its need to include full blown HDMI version 2.1. eARC allows the convetance of the same audio formats ordinarilly only accessible via HDMI to be conveyed using an enhanced form of ARC. If you had an 8K HDMI version 2.1 compliant display then it would also include eARC compliance and as such would allow an HDMI source requiring HDMI version 2.1 to be connected directly to the display while using eARC to then pass the audio through the TV and out to the eARC compliant AV receiver. All current AV receivers include eARC compliance despite not including HDMI version 2.1.

Denon/Marantz have held off replacing last years models above the X3600 and the SR6014 this year in order that the newer upper tier models will includede HDMI version 2.1 next year. The same is true of Yamaha who have also held back updating their top three models until next year.
I asked Marantz this though an email before I got the 8012, the manufacturers of the chip set for HDMI 2.1 upgrade boards for the 8012 and Denon 8500 should be available by summer 2020.

Not sure if D&M have added a few more from the range ready for the upgrade. I did get a eARC software update not sure of other models

I am guessing it to be later in 2020. I think the chipset are far from ready yet.

Not sure if the boards are chargeable
 
Last edited:
I asked Marantz this though an email before I got the 8012, the manufacturers of the chip set for HDMI 2.1 upgrade boards for the 8012 and Denon 8500 should be available by summer 2020.

Not sure if D&M have added a few more from the range ready for the upgrade. I did get a eARC software update not sure of other models

I am guessing it to be later in 2020. I think the chipset are far from ready yet.

Not sure if the boards are chargeable
I don't think the marantz is upgradable to HDMI 2.1 or is it.
 
I don't think the marantz is upgradable to HDMI 2.1 or is it.

According to Marantz/Denon, the Denon AVrX8500 receiver and the Marantz AV8805 processor will be the only 2 products to get a paid HDMI version 2.1 upgrade option. Marantz have made no indication that the SR8012 would also be eligible for such an upgrade.


Also of major note is that the Marantz spokesperson told me that every AV8805 would be eligible for an upgrade to HDMI 2.1 when the specification was finalized and hardware was available. This will require a complete hardware/board change of all HDMI components to support the new standard. As there isn't any available HDMI 2.1 hardware yet, the cost of the upgrade to consumers remains uncertain. Marantz expects the upgrade to be available sometime in 2020 after they have received the hardware and had a chance to implement it. But the company is essentially giving purchasers of this processor assurance that they won’t be left behind by the next major technology upgrade, and that if they make the commitment to the 8805, it will be ready to serve them well into the next generation of high-performance video and audio signals. [Editor's note: we originally reported at CES, based on information provided at the Marantz booth, that this upgrade would be free to consumers. Marantz has since qualified that this isn't the case, though we'd expect that the price would be a relatively modest outlay against the overall cost of this premium component.]
 
Last edited:
I’m a fan of Denon Amps but would like to know more about the virtual Atmos being included with their more recent offerings.

Is this any good

A With real Atmos soundtracks
B upscaling?

Or, as has been the case with most of these modes (ever since the Yamahas in days of Yore with their “concert hall“ and “70mm cinema” settings) does it just make everything sound like one has ones head in a bucket?
 
Or, as has been the case with most of these modes (ever since the Yamahas in days of Yore with their “concert hall“ and “70mm cinema” settings) does it just make everything sound like one has ones head in a bucket?


The intent is to create virtual speakers for speakers which are absent as opposed to try recreate what you'd hear if within a different room or venue.

Dolby Height Virtualization is actually something targetted by Dolby towards being used in soundbars as opposed to AV receivers. Why would anyone buy a 9 channel AV receiver and then not utilise those added channels of amplification?

Dolby Atmos sound bars with height virtualization
Dolby Atmos height virtualization processing leverages Dolby’s deep understanding of human audio perception to simulate an immersive audio experience while using fewer speakers. For height effects, virtualization is used to create the sensation of sound above you, originating solely from listener-level speakers. For systems without discrete surround speakers, virtualization of surround effects is employed to create enveloping, 360-degree audio without speakers behind or to the side of the listener.​
On a technical level, Dolby Atmos height virtualization applies carefully designed height-cue filters to overhead audio components before they are mixed into listener-level speakers. These filters simulate the natural spectral cues imparted by the human ear to sounds arriving from overhead. For surround virtualization, a combination of head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) and cross-talk cancellation are employed to approximate for the listener’s ears the binaural cues of surround speakers. For both types of virtualization, special care has been taken to equalize the associated filters so that the timbre of the audio remains natural anywhere in the listening environment.​
snapshot002.jpg
This illustration shows the difference between the Dolby Atmos virtual experience and the traditional sound bar experience.​
Content encoded in Dolby Atmos will provide the most realistic audio effect from a product that delivers the Dolby Atmos experience. The discrete height elements in the Dolby Atmos mix feed the Dolby Atmos height virtualizer, are processed by the algorithms, and then mixed in to the corresponding listener-level speakers.​
Dolby can support a number of output configurations with the Dolby Atmos height virtualizer, using 2 to 7 listener-level channels to create the sensation of either 2 or 4 overhead speakers.​





Note the use of Dolby's favourite HRTFs.
What is a HRTF?

Dr. Edgar A.G. Shaw became best known for his research in understanding the acoustics of the external ear. It was he who scanned the sound field in human ears using a tiny probe microphone with sounds arriving from different angles, and plotted the details of what we now call HRTFs. This is all documented in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America papers, and Dr. Shaw received the Raleigh Medal Award for his work. The cues for sounds arriving from above are associated with directionally sensitive resonances in the external ear in the frequency range of about 7 - 12 kHz. They can be very different for different people because our ears are all physically different. Taking an average of many ears though, one finds a general trend indicating that as a sound source is elevated on the median plane (directly forward in this case) there is an increase in sound level reaching the eardrum at frequencies around 7-8 kHz. There is another directionally sensitive resonance in the external ear around 12 kHz, but it is much less predictable because as frequencies get higher smaller physical differences between pinna result in greater response variations between individuals.

Dr. Shaw estimated that the dominant height cue could be modeled by a resonance centered at 7.5 kHz with a Q of about 3. A level increase of about 10dB would correspond to an elevation of about 45 degrees. To put this into perspective, this work was done in 1972, 42 years ago, so none of this is breaking news. A very perceptive final comment was “For this to work without special attention to the idiosyncrasies of the subject [the listener] it would probably be necessary to use a broadband source (e.g. white noise, clicks, etc.).” Clearly this phenomenon was well understood many years

Conclusion
It seems very apparent that the deployment of a HRTF in a loudspeaker crossover is not only problematic but likely not necessary as well. While they are useful in applications like headphones, and sound bars, adding them to an actual discrete external sound source like a loudspeaker playing in a room, and specifically in this case, a Dolby Atmos Elevation speaker module, can in fact impact performance in a negative way. Moreover, this also unnecessarily drives up the complexity of the speaker’s crossover and thus its associated cost. The human ear already has the benefit of its own HRTF customized to each listener. Simply selecting a loudspeaker with narrow and controlled dispersion, along with careful placement relative to the seated area can create the illusion of elevated sound for a narrow listening area, though not as precisely or as consistently as having a discrete sound source located in the position of origination it was intended to mimic.



Note that the conclusion suggest that their use may be favourable within soundbars, but that is on a gardware level and with it incorporated in the the speaker's own crossovers.
 
Last edited:
According to Marantz/Denon, the Denon AVrX8500 receiver and the Marantz AV8805 processor will be the only 2 products to get a paid HDMI version 2.1 upgrade option. Marantz have made no indication that the SR8012 would also be eligible for such an upgrade.



your correct it was the AV8805 with 8500 looks like these 2 models will not get updated which is why they will need the boards. I am surprised that the 8012 is not one of these models looks like it mght be updated. The newer ranges which i think are due next year i was told again summer 2020 will have the boards factory installed. i think other Manufactures are also holding back until the new chipsets are implemented.

To be honest hdmi 2.1 it is not really needed for most at this moment in time. D@M and other manufactures should simply have the chipsets ready and then announce it they seem to have rushed everything
 
probably will never be 8K disc based media

What makes you say that? Natural progression in technology means we will probably have 8K disc based media (dvd, blu ray, 4k blu ray, 8k blu ray). Sony/Panasonic have already cracked 500gb optical discs.

 
What makes you say that? Natural progression in technology means we will probably have 8K disc based media (dvd, blu ray, 4k blu ray, 8k blu ray). Sony/Panasonic have already cracked 500gb optical discs.

Probably more to do with the economics than technology. 4K will struggle because the vast majority of potential buyers will have sub standard 4K TVs so won't notice much improvement over Blu. Plus DVD still outsells Blu Ray and the DVD discs are license free.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The 3600 is down to £849 here:


After following this thread I've been a little torn between the 3600 and 4500 and have been finding myself leaning towards the latter.
 
The 3600 is down to £849 here:


After following this thread I've been a little torn between the 3600 and 4500 and have been finding myself leaning towards the latter.
If you can get a brand new 4500 for a similar price then it's probably the better machine.
 
I guess by black Friday 4500 might go down to 850£
That's what I am hoping for too as soon as it does or even £900 I I will be ordering one especially with a 5yr warranty if ordering from PT.
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom