Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Amplifier

Ok. I'll go back to my corner now

I just replaced my old Denon PMA 860 integrated amp with a new Denon AVR 1909, and I can affirm that the older Denon provided far superior transients. This quality was, and is missed.
The 860 was 80 w/ch and the 1909 is 90 w/ch, which are essentially the same however, the 860 had what probably was a better power supply to run two channels than the 1909 has to run seven channels, this makes a big difference in sound quality, particularly when the music gets to live listening levels.

I was told that the 2809 and up has better power supplies (or maybe that was the 3000 series and up but I think it was the 2809) Got that from Denon Tech Support a while ago. Give them a call if you need to know. I remember that I had wished I had the extra money for the 2809 and I think that was one of the reasons besides the pre-outs.

I believe the 28XX and up are using the same P/S. Although my old 1804 apparently was an overachiever according to this review, so who really knows what manufacturers are putting in these things these days.

That's what I find so frustrating. I don't think all amps/AVR sound the same just b/c they have the same specs. The science background crowd says they are all the same as a matter of physics. But if that is true, then there must a be a measure - current , THD, Widgetifaction - I don't know. Maybe I'll go dig into Byrston v. Sony or something to look for variation. I did note the other day that Integra lists the current capacity of its AVRs, and you can see a change from 36A to 70+A even when the watts moves only a bit. I checked Denon and they don't give the same kind of data. maybe that is a key spec for comparison.

Charles, the current actually used is determined by Dr. Ohm, not manufacturer hype. At an average listening level using about 1 watt, the current is less than 1 ampere(square root[power/impedance])while if a split-second peak hit over 100 watts, the current would be on the order of 5 amperes.

Well yes, there are measureable differences and marketing hype will tell you that Mr. customer will hear a difference, but...

Look at it this way. If you could measure the difference between 70db and 70.0001db, could you hear it? We can take pictures of stuff with electron microscopes you could not ever hope to see with the naked eye.

This is a very good thing for us consumers, but a pain for companies that would like to sell us things at very high margin.