Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Epic 60 500+Denons

I'm helping a friend set up an Epic 60 500, Denon 3805, and 3910 tomorrow. Any advice? He says the bass is too weak... I'm pretty sure it's a config thing, but if anyone has any tips on the Denons, that would be great.

Tell him you need to take the 500 home with you to make sure it's working properly.

Whenever he calls you about it, tell him you're still running tests. You could probably milk this for a few months or more.

Somehow, I don't quite see this working...

Tell me where he lives and I'll try it. . .

OK, that does it. Next time you have to help me clean up the spilled drink.

Stay away from the denon EQ in the auto setup. It's usually good for distance and speaker levels but in my experience the EQ did nothing for the sound quality.

I'm pretty sure that's where he went wrong (the EQ). I'm taking my sound meter and calibration disc with me. Then I'll probably have some quality time with the manual--arg--watch for posts around 3 PM PST!

Gee, now i remember why I didn't buy a Denon:

Really

Crappy

Website.


Further info: I'm going to be setting it up with DenonLINK. He told me that Denon has been certified for SACD and there's a patch for the 3910. Will DenonLINK work with DVD-V and CDs, or will those have to be a regular connection?

In reply to:

---

Gee, now i remember why I didn't buy a Denon:

Really

Crappy

Website.

---

Since that has a whole lot to do with the performance.

Granted, the feature list layout sucks. Yet it sure beats the "HIGH OUTPUT CURRENT PROPRIATERY VZX FEATURE ENABLED SURROUND 5.1 DOLBY DTX ROFLCOPTER TROUT" marketing you find on other sites.

Yeah Ken, the D-link also handles the CD and DVD-V sound. Doubt that auto-equalization(if he used it)had anything to do with the bass he heard, since it doesn't affect the sub. The auto-level calibration(if he used it)may have set the the sub level lower than he liked, so it can be set hotter to please him, but it's likely to be at least as accurate as a manual calibration with a meter.

I would also recommend reseting the receiver to the factory defaults. If you look in the manual near the end, it shows you the combination to reset the Denon, I can't remember and my manual is put away... I also agree with not using the Room EQ part, but I have found the Auto setup: delay, levels, etc. is very accurate, I only had to adjust my center up a bit higher than the setup configured. Heck man I get plenty of nice tight bass with my 350 and 60's. Good Luck Ken

P 87. Depress the direct and pure direct buttons and turn on main power. Display should flash for 1 sec intervals.

Thanks, all!

Hi Ken,

"the bass is too weak"...With an EP500?? What's he have, a ballroom? I'm sure it's the configuration. Be sure he sets the EP500's crossover control to Bypass, the Trim to Flat (Half adds 3 dB of boost at 35 Hz; Full adds 6 dB boost at 35 Hz).
(If in doubt, consult my clearly written (ha, ha) Quick Setup Guide, supplied with the EP500.)

Set the volume at about 9:00 a.m. and make sure the Sub level output in the Denon has lots of signal. And turn off that darn auto-EQ!! Hope it goes well.

Regards,

I think he's actually got a small room (maybe smaller than mine!), so I wonder about how it's set up. Hard to say until I see it. Thanks for the tips!

Well?!?!?

Hmm. If your room is small and your lowest room mode is 60 Hz, guess you would either need a whole bunch of bass traps to get decent response... or at least open all the windows

Didn't get quite that scientific... Anyway, I can report that the EP500 is ALSO an incredible sub... and I think I may (believe it or not!) prefer my 50s to his 60s. The 60s were, sadly enough, a touch bright for my tastes. Of course, he was also playing stuff louder in a smaller room than I have.

Aaaanyway... he took us out to lunch and we only started working around 4 PM, which is why this took so long. Denons, as everyone knows, have really baaaaad manuals, and their remotes are not great either. So, first I zeroed out the sub, turned off the crossover, set Trim to Flat, volume to 9 o'clock, set the speakers to small. Then I turned to the problem of getting
SACD to work over Denon Link. Let me digress and give you instructions (which Denon does not provide ANYWHERE) for how to do it:

1. Download firmware from Denon after entering all your personal information, including where you ate last night. Also, dig around behind the entertainment center (fortunately in this case just a TV on a factory stand) for the serial number on the unit, which is printed in nice large numbers.

2. Unzip the folder on your desktop from the download.

3. Burn this folder to a disc using your favorite program. Note to Mac users: you lose, no Mac support here.

4. Put the newly burned CD in the Denon. It will come up with a screen showing the DVD contents; namely Root Root DVD39somethingorother

5. Select DVD39somethingorother using the remote control navigation pad.

6. Press Enter. Wait with baited breath while the player says WRITING on the front panel and the screen says Erase Write Erase Write Erase Write.

7. Watch the DVD player eject the disc and then become totally unresponsive (including the standby button).

8. Turn off the DVD player with the power button, then turn it back on.

9. Go into the Setup menu with NO DISC in the player, go to the second tab (Digital HDMI or something equally intuitive), go to Denon Link, and change it to 3rd from 2nd or None. This is the step I missed for about 2-3 hours, until it finally percolated that there must be a 3rd in the menu now. OK, fine, I read it on AVSForum.

10. Put in an SACD, throw away your 6 cable mess, and enjoy bliss!

Oh yeah, make sure to set your 3805 to Auto instead of DTS or PCM, and your DVD input to DLink.

Aaaanyway, I found that I got better results calibrating with the meter and the Denon's built in test tones (hey H/K! Get it together and put in a sub test tone. Duh!) than with my DVE disc. This is probably because the 2 dogs and friendly neighborhood low riders were not present when I did the second calibration. He didn't have the mic for the Denon, so there we are.

The EP500 needed to be cranked way way down, and the output from the 3805 bumped up a bit. The reason he had weak bass was that the sub's trigger wasn't turning it on until the volume was very high. Hopefully -3 on the receiver will trigger it a little earlier. Didn't dare turn down the sub any more; it's at the end of the first stripe (around 7:30.)

So we watched a bit of Saving Private Ryan (daaaamn, now I know what you all are talking about!) and listened to a fair amount of Dark Side of the Moon SACD (daaaamn, now I know what you all are talking about!) and I bid my farewells. We also watched a teeny bit of the Roger Waters concert DVD and some of the Eagles one, before it was properly calibrated. BTW, his room is pretty darn small; probably 13 or 14 foot to a side, 8 foot ceiling.

There you go.

Nice, Ken. I suspect he was much happier with the way things sounded after you left, than before you came.

I can't stress how exciting action movies are with a capable sub. "Saving Private Ryan" is one of my favs. Right now I'm going through "Band of Brothers" for the first time with my VTF 3Mk II (this'll be the third time I've seen it) and "Bastogne" was truly frightening. I jumped when the German artillery hit. I can't wait to watch another episode tomorrow.

Ken, glad you got your friend's EP 500 to work, let alone the Denon. Sometimes this new technology to make things easier ends up being more frustrating than it should be.

Us mac people get the short end of the stick. . .

At least I didn't have to use the serial port to upgrade the 3910. Small favors... Also, another tip: the Ext In (multichannel?) setting does not use the same speaker calibrations as the DTS and DD settings, even if you use Denon Link.

Maybe they can remedy that in next years model.


And then sort of mention it in the manual on a couple different pages. . .


Who IS writing these things?

On my 2900 I just start playing with things to figure out how it works. . .

It's a crack up. There's nothing about how to set the speaker levels in the manual that I could find. What you do is press Enter on the remote. Which gets you the speaker levels. WTF?

There's also nothing in the 4000 lb. 3910 manual about how to do the firmware upgrade or that you have to stop the disc to turn on Denon Link (?). Plenty of pages about how to set random play (who uses random play on a single disc?!) or program tracks (who programs tracks to play?!), but nothing about that.

You know, the English portion of my Denon 2900 manual is roughly 15 pages longer than my H/K 7200 manual. Granted, the H/K isn't the best, but at least I feel like I have a fighting chance with it. I can flip through the Denon three times and still not find what I was looking for. I can imagine how the AVR manuals are. Sheesh!

Random play on a single disc is a waste. Also, programming tracks. Take longer to tell the machine, "I want to listen to track 1, 2, but not 3, 4, but not 5, etc." instead of sitting there with the remote in hand making use of the skip button.

Oh, fine. I figured someone would use those features and I would pay for that.

The 2805 manual is nothing to get excited about either. I've pretty much had to figure stuff out on my own, I"m sure there is still a lot to figure out...

fyi, I just bought a Panasonic S97S HDMI Upconverting DVD player, the manual also sucks, why can't these overseas manufacturers get someone who understands English publish the manuals? Oh well....

In reply to:

---

Oh, fine. I figured someone would use those features and I would pay for that.

---

I wouldn't admit it, even if I did!

Oh, I totally misread your post. Dur...

In reply to:

---

why can't these overseas manufacturers get someone who understands English publish the manuals? Oh well....

---

You could probably start a business that offers a more user-friendly version of manuals. Like a Cliff's Notes for electronics. . .

Not a bad idea, but your assuming I know a lot about AV.

Nice write-up, Ken. If I didn't have such a wonderful time lazing about the house today, I'd wish I had been there.

You know what they say when you assume something. . .

Just put in a bunch of recipes or something. It'll still end up being more useful than what's out there now.