Finally i’ve gotten the money to upgrade my old Pioneer VSX - 84TXSi, while i’ll miss the old beast, i’m excided to jump into the newest formats and experience all of that 3D sound goodness i’ve been promised. I still have my Klipsch THX ultra 2 set up in 5.2, but now that i’ve gone 3D surround I’m going to need height speakers after watching many videos on Atmos, DTS: X, and Auro 3D i’ve come to the conclusion that 4 height channels is a must. Blowing most of my budget on my $1800 AVR that’s now $2000 thanks to COVID I didn’t have much moeny for speakers so I got the Polk OWM3’s I bought 6 of them for $300 and i’m using 5 of them in a auro 3D set up 4 heights and 1 VOG above me, i’d love to have a top center speaker but I came to find out that only the x6700h allows that configuration.
After getting everything set up i’ve some what disappointedly come to find that 3D audio can be a real hit or miss type of experience. The content that’s made to demo 3D surround sound can sound incredible. The Auro 3D demo of Helicopters and airplanes taking off above you is simply amazing, it relaly does sound like a helicopter in in your room. Yet many Atmos movies are underwhelming, the Best experience I’ve had with Atmos so far is music on Tidal. It makes Stereo seem kind of boring honestly and it gives me Hope that more people will start building dedicated surround sound music listening rooms.
Over all, I’ve really come to enjoy the x4700h, I’m glad that I spend the extra money on getting Auro 3D with the x4700h over the x3700h, I think the up mixer is well worth it especially when playing video games. It really makes games like Battlefield V feel real with planes flying over your head and bullets whizzing past. But most of all what I love about the x4700h is just having a modern receivers with modern HDMI features like CEC and HDMI 2.0a nevermind that one port can do HDMI 2.1 (yes mine had the bug fix since it was made after may of 2021) of course for a old timer like myself who gets a new AVR every 15 years this is a massive upgrade and you might not share the same feeling of “WOW, EVERYTHING IS BETER” that I do.
Overall the AVR-x4700h or any D/M AVR is a excellent choice, they are feature packed easy to set up and really are a great bang for the buck, even with the price hike!
I thoroughly enjoy my X1400H and can only imagine the 4700 is even better. Only thing I regret is not going up 1 or 2 tiers to get a proper pre-out to be able to use my Denon POA-1500 amp. Admittingly I’m kind of a Denon fanboy.
The AVR market is a mess between the HDMI 2.1, the chip shortage and covid.
Happy we have another convert to the overhead surround lunacy on HIFI guides.
The best overhead sound mixes have the worst acting and story.
I’d wait for the new 2022 receivers to come out in a few months then get whatever the x3800h model is going to be, it offers most of the features of the x4700h without auro 3D and 3 zones of audio, I don’t use any zones other then my main zone so that feature doesn’t matter much to me.
Thank you, movies now days are absolute shit, I’m much more interested in the sound mixes than the actual movie plot its self. I thought Ready Player One was pretty good, and Midway was one of the best movies I think I’ve seen in 10 years. I’m pretty excided for The Matrix Resurrections, I just watched the first Matrix in ATMOS the other night on HBOMAX, It sounded ok, but didn’t have the absolute dynamic impact of a more modern movie like the John Wick series, maybe that’s because when you stream ATMOS your only getting Dolby Digital Plus and not the full lossless Dolby TrueHD that you get on disk.
Then theres the weak mixes from the studio . Edge of tomorrow 4k on “movies anywhere” is in ATMOS would be demo on a hard copy what im hearing on appltv4K through PCM . Everyone is waiting for that and gravity to get on bluray. With apple music pushing ATMOS music got me questioning my setup not being all timbre matched.
On the fence between the 4700 and the yamaha A6A. Waiting for the review to finally come out on the new yamaha to make a choice. Keep everyone posted what you think about the 4700. Does it have the replacement HDMI/DAC chips and is it running hot ?
Im using micca OoO for heights contemplating switching to klipsch 6in outdoor speakers. My endgame would be to mount your L/R for the atmos channels. Lol
My 4700 was build in July of 2021 so I think it has the ESS replacement DAC’s (also the HDMI 2.1 bug was fixed internally on mine so no need for the little box) Amirm over at Audio Science Review recently measured a Marantz AV8805A with the new ESS DAC and it measured better than the unit with the AKM DAC did, it was not by much but it did technically measure better. Also it does run hot I got a ac infinity aircom t8 for it to keep it cool, it does a pretty good job, but does get loud when the fan ramps up, I’m thinking about retrofitting it with noctua fans in the future.
As far as the Yamaha A6A is concerned I would have told you to get the 4700 over it, but since Denon raised the price of the 4700 to $2000 and the fact that the A6A will have HDMI 2.1 on all of its ports, and Auro 3D this makes for a much better case for the A6A. One thing I really like about Yamaha’s products is that Yamaha makes all of the DAC’s and little chips inside their units, they are truly Yamaha built from top to bottom and their reliability is top notch.
I’d love my LCR’s as ATMOS highth speakers, but they are expensive and heavy as fuck, and my wife would loose her shit if she saw a speaker that big hanging from the cealing, i’m already pushing it with the set up I have currently, (she doesn’t even know I have 2 more bipole’s and another Polk OWM3 just sitting in a box for a full 13.2 set up, but my x4700h is maxed out) I guess i’ll have to go with the x6800h when it comes out.
so they did switch to ESS on the 4700 think i got it crossed up with with SU going with a cheaper DAC on the 3700, good deal.
Hopefully any day for the bench tests to finally roll out on the yamaha, now that people are getting their units in from BB. But i really want to go external AMPs so might end up getting a 4700 .
I don’t know what DAC the 4700 has in it now, mine is a later unit built in June of 2021 so I’m sure it’s got the new DAC, they fixed the HDMI 2.1 bug on my unit as well, so I don’t have to deal with that stupid external box when I get a PS5.
If you look on this tread on ASR one guy took his 4700 apart and it looks like he still has duel AKM AK4458 DAC’s I don’t know old his unit is, but this looks promising, I think the 4700 and 6700 get higher end DAC’s than the 3700 does.
I have a feeling that the Yamaha Aventage RX-A6A will be a very popular choice over the x4700h its going to have all of the same features including Auro 3D and HDMI 2.1 on all of its ports instead of just one and will have a more beefy power supply. Yamaha AVR’s usually measure very well, after all much of the music and movies you watch and listen to are probably mixed on Yamaha mixing console’s, also Yamaha makes pretty much all of the chips inside of their AVR’s including the DAC’s
The Yamaha can’t drive as many speakers though, the Denon can drive 9 speakers while the Yamaha drives 7 max, and the Denon can control 11 speakers if you add an 2 channel poweramp with it.
I limited audyssey to 300hz and used a mini DSP to correct my subs, so I can’t really comment much on how Audyssey sounds, but I can tell you that mini DSP is a must have.
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