Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Denon Vs. Harman Kardon

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I just bought a Denon 2105 with the auto setup. I was wondering if it really worked and could be trusted to set distances, levels, etc. What doesn't work well? Other than the distance and level settings, what else is it supposed to do/ Thanks for any input.. I'm a huge ebay fan so if this doesn't work out, I'll just sell it and buy a 2805 or something comparable.

The Denons also have what they call auto-EQ, where the built in equalizer is used to adjust frequency response, not just the levels and delays you mentioned. Not 100% sure if the 2105 has that feature though.

The nice thing about the auto-EQ seems to be that it can control the EQ center frequencies (which you can't do manually) and therefore has a better chance of matching your room response -- the bad thing is that any auto EQ is still a crapshoot w.r.t. whether or not it improves things.

Charles, your 2105 should work very well with calibrating the basic distance and level settings, which it does besides checking speaker connections. This calibration is likely to be at least as accurate as any manual calibration that you could do with the RS meter, etc. Some reports on other boards have been along the line that their manual calibration showed that the auto-cal was "only 1 dB off"; perhaps an unrealistic belief that their manual calibration was the more accurate one. Note in particular that the sub distance may be shown as several feet longer than that shown by tape measure. Tape measures lie!!...Just kidding, but the longer than physical distance may be correct if the sub crossover is in the circuit and is causing a delay of a few milliseconds, equivalent to a few feet. Just as an experiment you could try the distance calibration on the sub with your STF-2's crossover switched both in and out to see if the distance shown is different.

What is more controversial than auto-calibration is auto-room equalization(which the 2105 doesn't have)which some have found to be effective and others not. The 2805 and 3805 include it and the 4806 and 5805 include the more advanced Audyssey MultEq. HK 435s and 635s include another advanced eq system developed by Dr. Toole's group at Harman, which concentrates on bass frequencies, including the sub.

Great. Thanks for the info. Helps to know this before I hook it up and adjust it. I had to go out of town for work and just got back so maybe tomorrow night I can tackle it.

I have the HK 630. I bought right before the 635 came out. I think the only difference between the two is the addition of the auto setup feature. Either way, I love the HK 630. It powers my M80's just fine and sounds great.