Hi all:

My trusty 9 year old Denon AVR 1802 has an issue with its crossover DSP unit and so I am in the market for a new receiver. I've read a fair deal on this forum about people's thoughts on Audyssey EQ, I'm wondering what experience and perspective people have on Audyssey Dynamic Volume?

Thank you in advance.

From Audyssey:

"
Unfortunately, TV stations are trying their hardest to push the limits and this is often made worse by locally injected content (e.g. local ads). There are three presets for Dynamic Volume. Denon calls them Day, Evening, Midnight. Midnight is the one that more aggressively minimizes the differences between loud and reference (dialog level).

Hopefully the Midnight setting will get you closer to what you are trying to achieve."

link: http://ask.audyssey.com/entries/91634-dynamic-volume

This is a feature I'm really interested in. I hate having to adjust volume based on dialog vs. commercial or dialog vs. explosion, or whatever.

When I was playing around with it I did find that I had to use the Midnight setting. It isn't 100% consistent though. You should also be able to use the receiver's and/or player's Dynamic Range Control (DRC) or Night Mode to control the explosions.

Well, if I had any of those features...

You will with your new receiver

I've only had the Dynamic volume feature on my 3808 for a couple of months but have noticed it has made watching TV a more pleasant experience. It appears to help keep the volume between commercials and shows on a more even level. I also really like Dynamic EQ, it helps with lower volume listening levels as it enhances the lower frequencies which almost disappear with low volume listening. Dialogue seems to be more intelligible with it as well.

I'm a bit disappointed with the Dynamic Volume feature on my Denon 3808ci. Every once in a while I try it out to see if I can get used to it but never sounds quite right to me so I turn it off again. It seems like the voices still get lost with all the noise in poorly recorded TV programming.

However, I really like the Dynamic EQ feature since I am usually listening at volumes that are much less than reference level. This is a great feature! It lets me hear at lower volumns the dynamics of the full spectrum of music and other programming which would otherwise only be heard at reference volume level.

-Dave

If I had to chose between DEQ and DV, DEQ wins, this is the feature that should be the main one when looking at bells and whistles on avr's.

+1

Thanks everybody for your thoughts - DEQ does seem interesting, although I can't say that I've noticed decreased listening pleasure at lower than reference volumes. The DV piece intrigued me only because we do have some rather loud commercials that pop up. But TV as opposed to movie viewing is only a small portion of our viewing, and it is only a minor annoyance. Thanks again all!

Personally I think DEQ is a lot like religion...






...wait, scratch that... I should probably quit while I'm behind.