How is the new Denon 3805?

Mr Bump

Established Member
Joined
Jun 3, 2003
Messages
365
Reaction score
3
Points
87
Age
50
Location
Leicestershire
I'm looking for a new amp and this one looks to fit the bill and is in my budget and would go nicely with my 2900 DVD player. I had a go with it at my local HC shop and it seemed excellent, but it would be nice to hear from any owners out there - thoughts, comments, any issues etc. TIA

Also, on a related note, how are www.digitaldirectuk.com ? I see they are sponsers of these forums, so they must be reasonably good sellers. I only ask because they have this amp at a great price.
 
Mr bump

Picked up an AVR 3805 along with an Acoustic Enegry EVO 3B package last week. I have to say I am mightily impressed with both. I can only really comment on the difference from my previous set up which was a rather limited but excellent for its time Denon AVR3200 and a set of B&W 602's/601's and REL Q50.

In multi channel mode the steering and detail is very noticeably improved over the previous system and there are similar improvements in standard stereo and 5 channel stereo modes.
The auto calibration with the microphone was a doddle and after watching a couple of movies Iam impressed the results of this proces. Haven't had chance to dust off the SPL meter and tweek the settings yet to see if I can imrove on the auto calibration.

One of the key facilities for me was the up conversion from S-video and composite to Component to route other sources to the AE300. My concern was that there might be a degredation of pq when running component from the DVD through the amp. Happy to report pq as good as a direct feed. S-video fom Sky+ box up converted to component appears better than I expected considering the source .

The user manual hasn't changed in layout and style in the intervening 6 years. It could do with improving.

Speakers

I think mostly run in after 2 days of repeated playing of Ministry of Sounds stuff (Not my choice ) before watching some films. I was never quite happy with the B&W's as they sounded too strident at the top end frequencies so when you cranked the volume up they seemed quite harsh. The sound from the EVO's sounds much more balanced and as equally detailed but with non of the harshness percieved before. The sub integrates well and is a big improvement on the old Q50.

Clearly these are all subjective views and based on limited experience but I am very pleased with the result.

Sapperjohn
 
Thanks for the info mate - it really does sound like just what I'm looking for - especially the component switching! I've heard the control can be a bit dogey, although I probably wouldn't use it much anyway, thanks to my Pronto. All I need now is to decide where to get it from.....
 
I'm also thinking about getting a 3805 and the best price i've found is £767 the same as Digital Direct's at qed-uk.com.

Everywhere else seems to be around £850.
 
sapperjohn
Whats your opinion on the remote have you had the chance to programme it yet, its be stated that batteries are chewed up pretty quickly!
cheers laurie
 
I have the 3805 after upgrading from a 2803 and the difference overall is huge.I'm sure you wont be dissapointed.

As for the remote,I personally love it,I have it programmed to control everything pj,HTPC,TV,Sky,cd and its flawless,also the batteries appear to be fine,well I've only had it a month or so but upto now theres no probs.

regards

Wij
 
Laurie

I like the remote and I've not had any problems with it so far, however (not sure how to put this any better)it doesn't have the feel of something that is going to last the lifetime of the main unit. I have downloaded AVR3803 ccf files for my pronto which provide all the main functions and will resist using the remote for day to day use.

sapperjohn
 
(not sure how to put this any better)

LOL
sapperjohn yeh I know what you mean thanks can you please tell me where you downloaded the ccf files from and is there not more features on the 3805 than the 3803
cheers laurie
 
Laurie

Downloaded the ccf's from http://www.remotecentral.com/cgi-bin/files/rcfiles.cgi?area=pronto. There is 2 or 3 AVR3803 files to choose from and I think they give all of the day to day functions that your likely to use. I'm trying to reserve the remote for set up and calibration type activites so its in good shape when its time to sell and upgrade to the AVR3899 ;)

sapperjon
 
I,ve had mine a couple of days now and impressed with its array of features,and was expecting a marked improvement over my sony strb940, but was dissappointed.

With movies its sounds natural and capable in all formats, but with music it's a little less awe inspiring.

Having said that my sony was well run-in,:)offtopic: how long do you reckon it is before a new amp is firing at its best?)and held a sentimental place in my heart.:blush: ;)

Its obviously a better amp with way more features but its performance doesn't compute being worth £500 more than I paid for my sony 3yrs ago,at least not yet anyway..
 
Originally posted by Mr Bump
Ordered mine - getting it Saturday! :clap:

Now, anyone any idea how much I can get for my old Yamaha 3090?
HeHe. Thats an almost scary exact duplication of my old amp and when my 3805's supposed to be arriving.

Wonder if its possible to get more for the 3090's as a pair of waits to hang off a lifting bar...
 
Vulcan,

I can't beleive that unless your speakers are holding it back. What speakers do you use? The dacs in the 3805 must be a whole lot better than the 940 which were good at best, average at worst.

Probably about 100 hours to burn in a new electrical device but I guess it varies.
 
Wonder if its possible to get more for the 3090's as a pair of waits to hang off a lifting bar...

Hehe - not a bad idea! ;)

Got the amp a day early - 'tis fantastic - never knew my speakers could sound so good! Looks the biz too:

Newamp1.JPG

Newamp3.JPG
 
Any comments on the EQ? How exactly does it work. I suppose I culd go Dl the manual but that wouldn't tell me how effective it is. After having MCACC I'm not sure I would like anything without EQ unless I stumble upon the perfect room.
 
Daneel,

I can tell you a bit about the EQ but this is my first amp with this feature so I can't compare it with Pioneer's system.

Firstly, you can choose from 5 EQ curves and set this individually for each surround mode e.g. Stereo, Direct, Standard (Grouping of Pro-Logic/DD/DTS) etc.


The curves are None (obvious), Flat (also obvious), Normal (This appears to be the settings created from auto-setup), Front (Set all speakers to the auto-setup settings for the front speakers - not sure how this works because the EQ created for my fronts are both completely different), and lastly Manual (allows you to set your own EQ for each speaker).

Manual or Auto-EQ does not apply to Sub btw.

For manual EQ, (which I havn't tried), looks like it allows you to set gain only (+/- 6 dB in 0.5 dB steps) for the following 8 bands

63Hz, 125, 250, 500, 1k, 2k, 4k, 8k

The auto-setup seems to be a bit more sophisticated though and sets gain and Q (not sure what this is but possibly it's the width of the filter) for 8 filters at individually selected frequencies for each speaker.

e.g My front left has filters at 50Hz, 130,180, 2k, 3.5k 6k, 9k, 13k
whereas my front right has filters set at totally different frequencies.
I also see gains set anywhere between + and -9dB.

Havn't played around with it too much as I was more than happy with the improvement over the last amp after running auto-setup just once.

For info, I upgraded from a Denon AVR-2800 and am using Mission 773e, 75C and 77DS speakers with an XLS200 sub.

Not sure what else I can tell you apart from my experience this morning when checking the response for individual frequencies and plotting a graph as seen on the BFD threads, using the snapbug sinewaves.

I didn't make any comparisons with EQ on/off (wish I had now - but kids are back and hogging the room) and just took measurements with EQ on, for frequencies between 20Hz and 160Hz.
I did tests with sub and fronts on, as I was also checking crossover between them.

I was pleasantly surprised at how flat my graph was, as I was expecting massive peaks and troughs based on previous tests on the old amp with a 160 - 10Hz sweep.

I will try to do this again for the various EQ settings to see if I can see noticeable difference at those frequencies.

Not sure if the above helps, but if there are any other specific questions please ask.

Also if others have a different understanding of the above please let me know.

cheers

Gary
 
Thanks for that gary. Very informative.
 
Stereo steve,Maybe I was a bit premature in my opinions of the 3805 with music.
I was using a cheap set of analog phono cables at the time.Since then I have wired up my cd player optically, and the digital pcm option give much more pleasing results.

I'm still getting to grips with this unit and am in the main well pleased with it,I was merley pointing out that I didn't think it was £500's better with music than the sony,but its early days yet.:cool:
Movies however.......Different league:thumbsup:
 
Originally posted by Mr Bump
Hehe - not a bad idea! ;)

Got the amp a day early - 'tis fantastic - never knew my speakers could sound so good! Looks the biz too:

Know what you mean, big improvement in clarity and steering etc over the 3090. Only downside so far is that I think the 3805 sounds more stressed at very high listening levels than the 3090 did. I guess thats what the extra 14Kg of power supply in the 3090 did for you (the caps in the 3805 are tiny in comparison)...

Like the remote as well, its the first learning remote I've had that's not been bought seperatly which actually manages to usably replace the bulk of the others.

Think its time to replace my speakers now...

John.
 
<Envy On>
Well Mr Bump, after a week with your new 3805, what's your verdict on its performance to date?

Any comments on speakers to match it?
<Envy Off>
 
Good post Gary, but I have some questions for anyone who has experience with the 3805.

1 Does the onscreen display show the volume? Does it offer the ability to change the volume to an absolute scale (positive integers)?

2. Can you toggle through multiple on screens...aren't there about 4?

3. Any idea of the cost of the denon's mic? did you use the denon mic?

4. Can you simply defeat the EQ with a simple button press or is it buried in the menu?...so as to see the effectiveness of the any calibration.

5. You mentioned that you noticed how flat the system was...did you use a test cd and what type of analyser? Are you measuring individual channels without the SUB? Did you mean 160 - 10Khz and not 160-10hz?

6. You mentioned that the denon system had made different settings to your fronts. So even with these different settings, you observed that both fronts had a fairly flat response? Are your fronts bookshelf or tower? Is one of the speakers in a corner of the room and the other one not?

Thanks,
Dave
 
I don't know how much the mic costs but it is included with the receiver here.
 
Dave,

Lots of questions - I'll answer those that I can.

1. On screen display will show the volume in dB - don't think there is a way of changing to absolute scale but I'm happy with dB so I havn't looked too hard.

2. There are 3 OSD screens which show info about the current source, surround mode, EQ selected etc. You can toggle through them with the OSD button on the remote.

3. As JIT said, Denon mic included with European models so yes I did use it.

4. You can toggle through the 5 EQ curves with the Room EQ button.

5. I did mention that the response with EQ set to Normal did seem to be flatter than my old amp but that was a first guess based on some spl figures I recorded using the snapbug sinewaves.
(Do a search on these forums for BFD to find out more about using the sinewaves and corrective spreadsheet etc.)
I used individual sinewaves from 20 to 160 Hz at roughly 5 Hz intervals.
Not very scientific but good enough for my purposes.
I had Fronts and Sub on in Stereo mode and was really just looking at integration between these and also the effect of the room whilst changing sub position, crossover setting etc.
I've not done any measurements with individual speakers, apart from plotting sub response on its own and Fronts without sub, but again this was only at frequencies below 160Hz.

Having plotted the graph it is not as flat as I thought but this is due to room effect.
From what I can see the Amp Equalisation does flatten some of the peaks slightly, (but also introduces others).
I'm still playing around with this and have plotted some graphs comparing EQ=Off and EQ=Normal. There is definitely some difference but I want to do a bit more work before I publish any graphs.

For info - I've since realised that some of the stuff I wrote about EQ in the previous thread was billhooks.
The main part I got wrong was regarding the Normal EQ setting.

The Normal EQ setting is used to bring the speaker response up to a curve denoted by Denon as "Normal". I have no clue what this curve looks like and would be grateful to hear if anyone else does .
I still don't know how the "Front" EQ setting works if the amp's analysis of frequency response from each speaker is different.
Maybe it sets all Right side speakers to the EQ of the Right Front and Left to Left etc.
Not something I'm going to worry about though as I happy with the Normal setting.

I did use a 160Hz to 10Hz sweep on my old amp.
Once again this was to get a rough idea of room effect on the sub.

6. I didn't mean that individual speakers had a flat response just that the EQ appeared to help flatten the response compared to my old amp without EQ.
One of my fronts is near a staircase which may explain why the EQ is setup differently for each speaker.

I'm still playing around quite a bit, (much to my wife's annoyance), so if I find out any other useful stuff I'll publish it here.

Gary
 

The latest video from AVForums

TV Buying Guide - Which TV Is Best For You?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom