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.
