Denon 1909 First hand feedback

[raman340]

Hi All

Thanks for the updates and advices all this long. (Spl. Thanks to Venkat, Ranjeet, Suniil..)

After buying 1909 last week, yesterday was the first day I hooked up my equipments. With
initial goof ups, I finaly managed to listen to a DVD-A in pure 24-bit 5.1 sound. Did the
Audyssey setup early morning (was 2 then ).

Here's my initial feedback:

• Sound measurements were quite accurate.
• Upscaling was crisp. I did not see any macroblocking. Most of the signals were good. I did see
  some noise when I went up to a feet near the TV (Samsung 40A610) (But that's OK). But std DVD playback was
  marvellous. Great upscaling...and I wasn't even using any of the HD content. The DVD was a normal
  720p I guess.
• Samsung 40A610 LCD also put up a good show. Nice, bright colors, good contrast..even with
  480 cable reception (Set-top box)
• I connected HDMI from AVR to the TV plus a 2RCA connector (for L/R). 1909 does not send audio in the HDMI
  for non HDMI sources. Rest assured all videos signals will be passed through HDMI.
• After Audyssey measurements, the sound stage was much better.
• Also the amp was no way near hot.

Let me know if someone needs something to be verified.
Anybody....anymore thoughts to these....

Best regards
Raman

 

[Dushie]

Raman, thanks for the excellent feedback, how much did you pay for the receiver?

 

[Sujit]

And some feedback of the sound pls.

 

[spirovious]

Congrates & thanks for review.

 

[raman340]

- 39K with bill

Sound was indeed good (Not great......read further). In the night, I had kept the volume low, still I could hear the dialogues very clearly. I was a little disappointed with the o/p since I have 4 ohms and I was not going beyond -15dB. I checked up with my dealer (who has listened to my speakers before), and he feels OK to pump up the volume. Also Audyssey toned down the volume of the rear sats. I guess that's what THX also recommends. But personally I think I would be tweaking rears up.
I tuned in discovery and set to Dolby Prologic IIx. But I could hardly hear the rears.(That's perhaps the Audyssey had set rears 4dB less than the fronts). 5 ch stereo simulation was the most noticeable one. Friends I guess it will take some time. And for the people who think that Denon's Manual sucks..I found it quite to the point.
Note ppl planning to use opticals to connect the DVD to the AVR, will have to assign the Digital IN to the respective Optical IN. Denon uses COAX1 as the digi IN for DVD playback. Also initially keep the settings in Denon to Auto. I made a mistake since I was not able to hear sound from the Speakers by setting the Decoder settings to DTS (while my DVD playback was only DD).

I will be connecting my worldspace today and will be changing the spkr settings. I am quite sure that there is more to be tapped. More to follow...

Waiting for more queries...if any

Raman

 

[raman340]

Congrates & thanks for review.

Thanks ;-)

 

[sviyer]

nice review. which speakers do you have?

 

[raman340]

nice review. which speakers do you have?

Thanks.
Not that great buddy. They are from Artis (It's a small Chinese company.. but very good build quality...)
I didn't want to throw away the 5.1's which I bot for 16K, 5 years back. (Alas Budget constraints me now). Besides the Sub is an Active Sub. So they serve my purpose. These speakers really pack a punch and had received rave reviews then.

Ok.. back to some more feedback..
I increased the ch strength of the rears on the amp, and I could find noticeable difference in rear presence. There is another lovely feature-> The amp maintains volume settings, and individual channel settings for each source. Dynamic volume was great. I set it to midnight setting. Usually Pogo channel has a higher sound level. The amp ironed it out. Another nice feature was setting RGB enhanced mode, which extends the Black/White range to 0-255. To some it may seem artificial as the contrast appears to be higher.

While exiting the HDMI menu, amp takes 3-4 secs to switch back the video to TV. I tried my hands on HDMI Control ..and Power Control feature..But without success..Will Try Again...

 

[Sujit]

Thank you Raman - I am mulling between this and a Marantz 5003

 

[raman340]

Thank you Raman - I am mulling between this and a Marantz 5003

Sujit, although I can't comment for the Marantz one, except that Marantz amps are well known for music listening. I think it will not be having features as strong as the Denon 1909. Believe me with the features this model has, Denon already has a winner and VFM. However If you need to clarify something, let me know.

 

[Sujit]

Sujit, although I can't comment for the Marantz one, except that Marantz amps are well known for music listening. I think it will not be having features as strong as the Denon 1909. Believe me with the features this model has, Denon already has a winner and VFM. However If you need to clarify something, let me know.

Thanks Raman. You already clarified one thing - that the 1909 Manual is not the Demon its made out to be!

Will give you a holler presently

 

[raman340]

I noticed that the Amp remembers channel settings for each DSP mode also. Another nice feature..

Regards
Raman

 

[bhaskie]

Hi, nice feedback. Very useful thread.

Can you confirm this for me:

"Denon1909 will not do ANY processing to HDMI video. The only thing it will do is pass the video through. There is NO processing and NO degrading/clipping of HDMI video at all. The only video processing available is analog-to-digital transcoding and scaling. The analog>digital transcode may soften the picture slightly, although you probably will never notice it. If you leave all the video settings at the defaults, the Denon will take any analog signal you input and output it via HDMI at the highest resolution setting your TV accepts."

 

[raman340]

Hi, nice feedback. Very useful thread.

Can you confirm this for me:

"Denon1909 will not do ANY processing to HDMI video. The only thing it will do is pass the video through. There is NO processing and NO degrading/clipping of HDMI video at all. The only video processing available is analog-to-digital transcoding and scaling. The analog>digital transcode may soften the picture slightly, although you probably will never notice it. If you leave all the video settings at the defaults, the Denon will take any analog signal you input and output it via HDMI at the highest resolution setting your TV accepts."

Hi Bhaskie,
Thanks..
Unfortunately my setup does not have HDMI INs. But yes its true, Denon1909 will not do ANY processing to HDMI video. Reason-> This feature usually ships in higher end versions 3xxx 4xxx 5xxx series. These have digital VDO processing. Besides the menu clearly states that it is a A-H conversion. Also it has the option of bypassing HDMI signals as is, if desired. It means if you have non-full HD HDMI source, there would be no processing available to them. There is an auto setting in the amp for automatic resolution upscaling.

Please note that the Foroudja FLI-2310 chip does a "OK" job. It's certainly not the best and certainly not the worst. It does a good job (at this pricing) and esp for DVD sources.

Please also note that if you switch OFF the VDO convert function, and you have a single Monitor connected (only HDMI) bwn the amp and TV, all your analog VDO sources would be cut out (i.e transcoding will not be done).

Regards
Raman