Should be receiveing my new M60s and V100 next week. Does speaker wire need to be below a certain guage, type, etc?

Use the chart found on this page as your speaker wire bible. Most of us tend to err on the side of thicker-than-necessary, however.

http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm

I would reccomend this:
http://www.monoprice.com/products/produc...&seq=1&format=2

They have rolls of 100 ft, 250 ft, and 500 ft if you need more.

50 ft should be plenty for three front speakers though... depending on where your receiver is of course.

I bought something very similar from bluejeanscable for $0.61/ft... the monoprice version is def. cheaper

I would reccomend getting some banana plugs for the receiver end of the wire. I bought mine from buejeans cable and they came with some heat shrink and instructions. can buy those from monoprice at the same time you order your cable tho. I just left the speaker end of the wire unterminated.

Axiom also sells some speaker wire by the way.

Thanks for the info guys. I read somewhere, I actually think it was in one of these forums about biwiring where you would remove the jumper between the 2 sets of speaker termimals and run, for example, 2 speaker wires from the right front and run 1 wire to the bottom terminals for the bass portion and the other wire to the top terminals for higher range. Does anyone do that and if so can you tell a diffence? Thanks.

You can do this, but there's pretty much no point to it.

Have an article. I did this with my fronts, but it's really not necessary. Also, I used Canare 4S11 from Blue Jeans cable for it, since that particular cable is not readily available in the US.

Won't make any difference.

If you must, you can use this cable:
http://www.monoprice.com/products/produc...&seq=1&format=2

And leave the binding straps on.

Thanks again all. If it doesn't really help to biwire I'm not gonna do it. Monoprice looks like it has REALLY good prices on their cables and wiring. Is their stuff good, high grade material for those prices?

Does everyone play their speakers with the grills on? I read where a lot of people leave them off and say it sounds better and also saw a post where some other brand recommended leaving them on and the user said they definately sounded too bright with them off.

Is oxygen free copper. What else do you need?

I was really talking about the HDMI 1.3 cables and such. If they are indeed worthy cables I feel like I've been ripped off at Ultimate Electronics and Radio Shack

Ah, yes, they are very, very popular for HDMI cables. Highly recommended by many people. I myself don't have HDMI, so...

On for me. I think Paradigm designed their speakers to have the grilles on (I think for dispersion). To me, the Axioms sound exactly the same with them on or off, so it's just a matter of aesthetics.

I just bought a 10 foot 1.3 HDMI cable from monoprice a couple of weeks ago for like $5 bucks.

The thing is built very well and works perfectly.

Also, I don't notice a difference in sound with the grills on or off.

That's what I'm talking about. I think I paid around $55 at Ultimate Electronics a few weeks ago but I did get 'em to knock about $420 off the receiver I wanted so I guess I came out ok, but still I'm getting the rest of my cables at monoprice

Keep in mind I had to pay for shipping, so it came to about 8 or 9 bucks total. It arrived in like 2 or 3 days too!

If I were you I would think about taking that HDMI cable back to Ultimate Electronics and buy one from monoprice!

what receiver did you get?

I got the Denon 3808. Since I bought it all together I guess I'll keep the cable this time but they won't get me again

I noticed your O-State avatar and had to go figure out how to get mine up there

And they probably still made more money in margin off the cable than they did off the receiver.

[quote=St_PatGuy]


Probably did even though I had found the 3808 on the Internet a couple of hundred dollars lower than what I paid at UE but I was concerned with the "authorized dealer", delivery (waiting) and all thet cr*p. I also listened to speakers there. Klipsch, Mirage and some others I can't think of off the top of my head and I just didn't like the way any of them sounded.

They took me to a surround environment with the Klipschs and tried to sell me by playing the damn things so loud that you can't really distiguish music, sound effects, voices etc. so I had to pass. Loudness doesn't make it sound good but if it sounds good you can probably play it loud

The denon 3808 is a very good receiver. Tons of options, the internet radio, streaming network ability, GUI, and robust amp make it one of the best receiver on the market at its pricepoint in my opinion

Not sure what you paid for it, but it can be purchased from 6ave.com for $1098 with no taxes or shipping fees. 6ave is an authorized dealer by the way.

I have the 3808, m80's, Qs8's, vp150, and ep500. you will love your axioms!

oh yeah,
I am ready for football to start!

Well said.

Bobby, welcome. It's pretty much already all been said here about wire and cable(you should particularly study the info from Mr. Russell that Peter linked, if you haven't had a chance to do so), and yes, this is one of the biggest rip-offs in the present audio scene.

Appreciate your sig line, and you might find a recent thread(in the Water Cooler section)about recommendations for a compact pistol to be of interest.

Of course what would be really cool is playing Loudness loud: Loudness (stick with the original Japanese version)

Thank you. I finally hear from someone using the 3808 and the Axioms. I have the M60s and the vp100 on the way, my space is pretty small so I hope the 60s sound good there. I think without looking that I paid $1180 for the receiver but like I said earlier they took me to the shed on the HDMI cable and I actually got $20 off that.

I'm ready for football too Good luck to you unless you're playing us (OU)

You have heard from 2 that have the 3808 and Axioms. It is a great combo. I previously ran an older Denon 1804 with M22s then briefly with the M80s and the system still sounded great. The Axioms are very easy to drive and sound very clear, you should love your new system.

I just realized who you are after a quick peek at AVSforum, glad you found your way over here.

yah, the 3808 drives the m80's with no problem, and of course will power the m60's with ease as well.

MY living room is only 2150 CF (but is open to a kitchen/dining area and hallway. In that size room the m80's sound great... Oh yeah I sit about 11 feet away from my m80's.

Not a bad deal on the receiver from ultimate electronics- they use to be the most expensive place in town. (at least the one in tulsa was)

Hope you stick around the boards- I need someone to ridicule when we beat OU in football this year.


Oh yeah, pictures are nearly a requirement around here.

Thanks jakewash. I guess I screwed up. When I tried to register with the same name here that I did over at the AVSforum and it said someone already registered with that same email address, which was me but with a different screen name.

Axioms left Syracuse this morning and although delivery date says 25th I suspect I'll see them Monday or Tuesday

I wish I could sit 11 feet away but the way my living room is setup it also opens to a dining room and kitchen area but I can't move my listening area back because it would be in the middle of a walkway/path.

Pics will be posted as soon as I get everything in place

I have a few questions about tuning in the speakers with my avr but I'll do that in a comment to follow. I've read all the info in the Axiom site and it is very helpful but I'm kinda dense and have to have some things spelled out for me.

You may have to wait a couple more years on winning that football game. Even though we lost a couple of good defensive backs most everyone is back and I hear the replacements for those we did lose are shaping up to be at least as good and probably better

Questions for those with 3808s because your familiar with that receiver and input from others that understand setting up a receiver and speakers.

Should I not use Audyssey MultEQ auto setup?
Read somewhere (maybe here) that the best way is to not use auto and do everything manually with a sound meter from Radio Shack or similar.
If so would I set everything to 0 and work from there with the built in tone generator? What kind of levels will I be looking for or does the manual with the sound meter explain all that?

Just trying to get a head start so when the Axioms walk in the front door I can hit the ground running

Try the Audyssey and see if you like it. I use it as well as others on the board, I'm am very happy with the results. If you don't care for how it sets everything up then calibrate manually. But it is easy and worth the small effort it takes to try it first.

I continue to see folks bashing Audessey here and elsewhere. To each their own I reckon, but I sure like what it does in my room with my set up. So ya, I agree with Michael, give it a whirl first before you get on the Audessey basher bus. Just make sure you take your time with mic positioning and make sure that you do not have any background noise when doing the set up. After you run it, verify distances and SPL levels. You might also want to change speaker sizes and X-over settings to your liking.

I was running my M80’s with the 3808 and it did just fine. I added a 200X5 amp and didn’t notice a dramatic difference. A wee bit more headroom and slightly improved dynamic range, but it definitely wasn’t a night and day difference.

Thanks for the input guys. The posts I saw where they said to turn it off and do everything manually may be people that have been doing it for years and are used to doing it manually or really know what they are doing.

I used Audyssey on my current setup and it seemed like the volume levels were very low after it did it's calculations but that was right out of the box and I probably didn't do it the correct way, because like most guys, I don't really like to read no stinkin' instructions. I'll give it a shot when my Axioms show up.

Do I understand correctly that the 3808 has an internal 7 or 9 band equalizer and Audyssey sets all those freq. levels? If so how do you reset them all to default and can you access the equalizer manually? I remember having equalizers in the "old days" and thought playing with all those sliders was pretty cool. You could definately fine tune your audio

You run auto set up first and make changes later. When you run the auto set up, it is VERY important to take your time. You need to make sure that the mic is at ear level as you sit in the seating and it is pointed straight up (preferably on a tripod). After you get it set in the first position, get comfortable somewhere that your body will not serve as some sort of bass trap or reflective object (no kidding). I grab my RF remote and back myself into the EQ area when I do this. You may be able to crouch behind a couch or something. When you are ready, also make sure that the kids aren’t running around with waffle bats or your neighbor isn’t running the lawnmower. It everything is cool, hit the go button on the remote and let the AVR do its thing. Repeat this in four or five more seating locations. Then you let the AVR calculate and then save those settings.

Step 2-
Verify speaker distances. You will notice that the sub is wacky. Don’t worry too much as it should show further away than what it actually is. Some folks have their own rules of thumb for this, and mine is + 8 feet. Make sure all the other speakers are pretty close to actual distances.

Step 3-
Set up your handy dandy RS meter on the tripod you had the mic on. Put it in the main position, which should have been position one when running the auto set up. Go into manual speaker set up and run through the channel levels manually. Dial all the speakers in to how you prefer them. You may not have to touch anything. I prefer the center channel to be 2 DB higher than the mains, the sub to be 5 DB higher than the mains and all others matched to the mains.

Step 4-
Check your X-over settings. Play with these some. I like to set my mains to Large and all others to small. I set LFE to Mains + LFE. Again, play with these a bit to see where you prefer it.

Step 5-
Copy the EQ curve. This does as you mention, sorta. It copies a few bands where Audessey set them. You can then go to each of the bands and tweak as you wish. This will most likely drive you nuts because you’ll always want to ‘tweak’ them.

After you do all that, you can then turn Audessey off and use your manual settings, turn it on, to flat, or F/R bypass. Only in Manual mode will the EQ bands be different. In all other modes they are left where Audessey put them.

Thanks mdrew, this is the kind of detailed description I've been looking for. I'm gonna print this out and give a shot next week when my fronts and center arrive

Seem to be a lot of people that don't mind helping out with good advice on this forum. Think I'll stick around

Even if you don't keep the Axioms for some reason(it does ahppen on occassion) stick around anyway, I find this forum much more fun, helpful, than most.

I ran my 3808 without Audyssey for a couple of weeks then decided to try it out and it took me a few days to get used to the new sound, reminiscent of speaker breakin theory. I liked what I heard. I have recently reset the processor and lost all settings and have yet to go back to the Audyssey, as I still like the non EQ'd setup and I haven't had time in the house alone to do the EQ setup.

Bobby, regarding Audyssey(and other auto calibration/room equalization systems)keep in mind that there are two separate functions involved, i.e., calibration and equalization, which distinction many still fail to grasp. As to the calibration of levels and distance delays, the automated process should be at least as accurate as a manual setting(with added human error), even when aided with a separate SPL meter.

As to the room equalization function, this is more controversial, but the majority of users who've applied it correctly(long discussion on AVS)report improvements, regardless of comments along the line of "Audyssey stole all my bass!".

Luckily, that is very easily repaired with a quick bump up of the subs setting.

I ran audessey with my m80'sd and wasn't terribly happy with the results. I changed the setting on my sub and re-ran it.... I had adjusted some of the channels after the audessey set up (fine tuned things with my SPl meter) and for some reason audessey just kept reverting to the old settings.

Acouple of weeks ago I did a hard reset and manually adjusted everything without ever running audessey. So far I like things much better without it...

"Edmond,"

Just a brief note to put another +1 on the 3808 + Axioms. I love my setup and the Epic 80 sounds fantastic. When I did my initial setup, I ran Audessey.

I found that the distance setup results were fairly accurate, but did find that recalibrating with an SPL meter led to some small changes and this was mostly for personal preference moreso than it was that the volume levels were actually imbalanced. For example, I like to run my center channel +3 dB from the other fronts, and my sub ~3-5 dB higher, so I bumped these up manually afterwards, but the SPL meter helped to fine tune).

In my room, running with the Denon-applied EQ and without it, I do not notice a large difference, so I think it's something you should try in your room and see if you like it better with or without it. One way or the other, I'm pretty sure you're going to be very happy with the setup.

Has anyone used Axioms speaker wire?

What was the results?

Can you use it inside walls?

I use it. It's pretty neat (gauge 12 with nice black rubber that is not too thick). I don't think they have the certification for in-wall (otherwise they would advertise it). You might want to drop them an email; they are always eager to answer questions.

I know that monoprice.com and Bluejeans have 12 that are certified for in-wall application and that are not expensive at all.

Speaking of speaker wire (or sub cable).

I am thinking about moving my sub to the back left corner of my room... this will require about 40-50 feet of sub cable.

This is really cheap through monoprice($9.60), and about $65 through blue jeans. I bought my 10 foot sub cable from blue jeans and REALLY like how flexible and soft the cable is... I just think that the sub cable from monoprice will be more like a coax cable that is hard to tame... making it harder to run along baseboards and around corners.

Anyone ever used a subwoofer cable from monoprice?

I am VERY happy with my HDMI cable, but wondering if I should just stick with Blue jeans for the sub cable since I know I like it.


hmmmmm.....

David, yes when I got my EP500 I sent for this cable from MonoPrice. No problems, of course, and flexibility is fine in my opinion.

Signal losses in coaxial cable are almost zero at sub frequencies and home connection distances, so there's no need to get that high-priced $9.60 cable, which is RG6 rather than RG59(and likely somewhat stiffer).

Most of my cables have come from monoprice, including a 50ft coax sub cable. I had one end where if you tightened the fitting to tight, it would strip loose, so a little black electrical tape keeps it firm.

kinky

Randy, now you see how Peter was able to make it to 10,000.

I have, Its nice wire. Very flexible. I used it inside the walls. Its not in-wall rated. But so what. I dont need to protect myself... from myself like the government thinks with their nonsense building codes. For example. If my speaker wire is on fire inside my walls. I think i have bigger things to worry about than how toxic the fumes are.

Just as long as your carefull pulling it that you dont damage it as it doesnt have the extra jacket on the outside.

The axiom speaker wire does have a funny smell to it though. I mean, When you get it you'll see what i mean.

can anyone tell if there is a difference between these two cables from monoprice:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/produc...&seq=1&format=2

http://www.monoprice.com/products/produc...&seq=1&format=2

Thanks

One is RG6 the other is RG59

ok, I noticed that now.

based on my quick internet search, both RG6 and RG59 work the same (for subwoofer use)

Is this correct??

That is my understanding as well.

I use RG7.3.

I stick my finger in the sub and my toe in the receiver. So there.

That explains so much.

That's how I perform ECT!

I have found that the best CD for that is "Thunder and Lightning"

And David, the second one has a "fancy connector". As I said in my previous reply, the RG59 cable is fine.

Yup they will both work just fine. Personally I would go with the RG6 but it really doesnt matter. The big difference between the two can be seen when being used for CATV. You definetly dont want to use RG59 for that purpose these days as it will degrade signal quality.

terzaghi, what did you do to do a hard reset on your avr? My Axioms should arrive within the next few hours and if there is a chance that the avr may revert back to the "old" settings I may want to do a hard reset also.

from the denon manual:

microprocessor reset (master power off, hold down both the DSP and the Standard button, master power on, wait for three flashes, release buttons)

standard reset (master power off, hold down both the 'up arrow' button and the 'down arrow' button, master power on, wait for the flashing, release buttons).

I did a standard reset, it resets all of your channel levels, any audessey results, video settings/ input names and assignments, ect.- basically puts it back to its factory setting (without downgrading any firmware updates that you may have installed.)



not sure if that is really necessary if you plan on running audessey. I would do a reset first if for some reason you decide to do everything manually after you have already ran audessey.

Thanks terzaghi for the fast response. I'm standing with my nose against the window wondering "where oh where is that FEDEX truck"

yeah, I went and picked up my speakers from DHL on my lunch hour... took two trips to fit them all in my jeep, I just couldnt squeeze the ep500 in with everything else

FEDEX showed up around lunchtime. I now have the M60s and VP100 setup and I'm playing one of those techno Internet channels with the hard driving bass to loosen em up In the other room becasue I can't stand that kind of music but it seems harsh enough to break em in with.

I haven't had time to run the auto setup or anything yet but I did listen to a couple of songs before I came back to my home office to finish out the workday. I can officially say that "For Abbey" by Ronnie Earl & the Broadcasters sounds great!

If I go to the manual setup I have it set to Large fronts but if I go look at Auto Setup>Parameter Check> Speaker Configuration Check, that section still shows the fronts as small. Is that because I haven't rerun the Audyssey setup?



You might notice my wife already wants to set her vases on them. Oh well it's not real plants and there is protection under them so they won't scratch the speaker tops. Will having something like that affect the speaker sound?

Lookin good. Setting your fronts to small, rather than large, diverts the sub-80Hz frequency sound to your subwoofer. Even with a set of "large" speakers, it's a good idea to let your sub (especially your EP) do the heavy low end lifting. Set them to SMALL and put your cross over between 75 and 100 Hz.

And no, besides hurting my eyes, the plants shouldn't affect your listening enjoyment.

Oops - just noticed you might not have a sub. If you don't, then leave them to LARGE. My comments about the plants remain unedited.

keep in mind that with the 3808 there is two seperate places to adjust speaker size. One is for surround mode and the other is for direct/stereo 2 channel listening.

If it is set up with audessey It should change them both, but if you do things manually be sure and keep that in mind.


Also, I don't see how the vase could impact the sound at all.

I won't let me wife see your comment about her "arrangements"

If you look closely in the lower right you'll see my sub. It isn't a real big one though, a Definitive Technology 8 or 10 inch. Can't remember for sure without going and taking a look.

So you're saying that you don't have to have your large fronts set to large for the avr to drive them appropriately? That all that does is reroute the bass below 80Hz to the sub?

Also, you don't need to worry about break in, per Ian.

I do have it set to large with no sub in the 2 channel section. I may change that later to add sub but I wanted to run all sound through the M60s for a few hours. I've seen some comments that you need a break in period and some say they are already broke in when you receive them.

Whoever said you can tell big differences between different sources it right. I have some mp3s (I know they aren't ideal for great sounding music) ripped at 320 and 256 (which in theory is CD quality) and some like For Abbey and Mr. B.K by Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters sound great while some of the others sound like an AM radio

yes, setting them to small just diverts the freq. below the crossover point to the sub.

However, if you set the fronts to large, and change the sub setting in the denon to "lfe+main" then the frequency below the crossover will be played by both the mains and the sub. This will likelly give you too much bass but might be worth trying out.

If the fronts are set to large, and the sub is set to "lfe". then the sub is not used at all for 2 channel music. (unless you are in surround mode and then only the lfe and the low frequency to any small speakers are sent to the sub.)

Ian from axiom stated that any "break-in" happens nearly instanteously.

I did run into that scenario of setting the fronts to large, and the sub setting in the denon to "lfe+main" and it was indeed a lot of bass. I found that if I backed the sub off a bit it sounded pretty good. I guess I'll have to experiment.

Thanks again for the info. I'm taking notes I appreciate you and everyone else pitching in, it's making the learning curve a lot less steep.

FYI, I have my m80's set to small with a 60 hz crossover for movies, and I think a 40hz crossover in 2channel mode.

You think the M60s could run at the same crossovers or should I bump it up a bit?

I jut ran Audyssey and my system sounds ALOT better than it did before. I guess I had played with all the settings so much I had everything screwed up. I think now I can just tweak if from where Audyssey set everything. It did set the bass way low but as someone said earlier you can "bump" that up.

I am sure that will be fine. Some people have mentioned using an 80 hz crossover for movies and a 60 hz crossover for music, or even 80hz for both.

I lowered it a bit and found it to sound good, plus It makes me feel like I am taking advantage of the woofers in the towers that I paid for a little more

Just experiment and see what sounds best to you.

You can increase the bass of the SW just by adjusting the channel level. If you want to increase the low frequency on the m60's you can copy your eq curve from audessey and manually adjust up the lower frequency's a bit.

I recommend making adjustments in small increments.

However, be careful making too many adjustments after you run audessey, it can open up a whole can of worms! Also, you might end up like Mojo, tweaking your system for at least a good 6 months!

After all of my tinkering I found that no EQ curve, no audessey, and a simple manual channel calibration sounded best. I still plan on relocating my subwoofer and adjusting things more in the near future.

David, after i ran Audyssey and tweaked a bit I went to the menu and did a "Copy the EQ Curve" and noticed I can go into each speaker and have the equalizer settings.

When you do the Copy the EQ Curve is that what your manual settings use when you go to manual? Also if you tweak them separately is that changing the Audyssey settings or just the manual? All these different settings are confusing me a bit.

when you do a curve copy you have to press EQ button on the remote while listening until it says 'manual' to hear the adjustments. If the screen shows 'audessey'or'audessey-flat' then you are listening to the standard audessey curves, even if you have made manually adjustments to the copied curve.

This allows you to compare your adjustments to the audessey eq to no eq at all.

I found that the brief silence when switching between these made is hard to make a good comparison though.

make all of the adjustments you want on the curve copy since it won't effect the original audessey results.

I must be doing something wrong. When I hold down EQ it only toggles between EQ Off and EQ Manual.

have you ran audessey with the supplied mic?

When you copied the eq curve was everything at 0 db or was there already changes made to the curve?

If audessey had ran correctly then when you first copied the curve you should see all of the changes that audessey implemented for each frequency listed.


on page 43 of the manual it says that if you changed the settings of a speaker which was set to "none" then you can not select audyssey EQ. not sure what they mean by this, but maybe if you had surrounds or SW set to "none" during the auto eq, and then later added it in by manually changing SW to "yes" or connecting surrounds then you have to re-run audessey.

Sounds like these guys really need to implement an http interface so that they can do a much more intuitive menue system.

you can access the denon menu through ftp from your computer...

FTP sounds like exactly not the protocol to use for remote management. It's called File Transfer Protocol for a reason!

you can transfer setting files from the denon to the computer or vice versa.

not sure why they went with ftp though.

And then edit them by hand? Surely there's a telnet function if there's FTP, right? Then again, this Denon we're talking about...

when you access your denon from the computer (I think it is through ftp) using your web browser, there is a text menu that is arranged similar to the GUI menu.

You can adjust all settings from there, or save the settings onto your computer. Then you can upload these saved settings to your denon at anytime.

It is actually pretty convenient.

There is actually http access. You can make changes there and they take effect immediately. But it is nowhere near as polished as it needs to be.

David, I did indeed use the supplied microphone and ran the Audyssey setup this morning.

hmmm... no clue.

When you copied the EQ curve did the starting curve have changes already made to it from audyssey?

Yes, each one of the speakers had different settings.
I have some surround Bs that I didn't have turned on in the setup and when I looked at those they were both set to all 0s but the FL FR Center SAR SAL all had different frequency levels.

see my above post.

If you hooked up any speakers after you ran audyssey you will have to re-run it

audessey takes all speakers into account when it creates the EQ curve, so adding two new speakers can significantly change the results.

I don't actually run the B speakers I just have them hooked up in case I want to turn on the smaller speakers as a comparason or run A+B together.

I'll remove them from my speaker setup and see if that makes a change, if not I guess I'll rerun Audyssey but not while it's thundering like crazy outside

Is there someplace in the menu where you tell it to use "Audyssey or Audyssey Flat"? I don't see it but the menu is a little confusing to me as well. I'm amazed you find things in that manual. For the way my brain works I don't think the 3808 manual could be written any worse!

download the manual in pdf form from the denon website, then just do a search for the keywords you are looking for...

the manually really does suck!

The EQ button cycles between Off-manual-audyssey-audyssey flat.

IF you manually went in and changed surround b to "yes" then you need to re-run audyssey...

I have to drive through OKcity in a couple of hours on my way back to tulsa from lawton... is it storming there?

IF all you did was hook them up and never enable them on the receiver then it shouldn't have caused a problem.

do you have the most up to date firmware?

This is probably too late but it isn't storming here anymore as of 11:00 AM.

I went into my speaker configuration and told the receiver that I had no B speakers and now all my Audyssey settings are back again. Thanks for the hints. I didn't realize they had a PDF manual online, Duh! I'll d'load it today. That is definately the way to go. Seems like everything I try to look at in the manual says "go to page blah blah blah" so I'm flipping back and forth constantly.

If you are coming back from Lawton you're around my old stomping grounds, I grew up around Duncan

I probably should start another thread for this question but I don't want to appear to be a "Thread Hog"

I noticed one of the posters ordered an Emotiva XPA-5 5 channel amp to drive his speakers because his Yamaha couldn't drive them properly. What are everyone's thoughts on that? I see my 3808 has pre-outs so it could work as a preamp to the amp for some channels.

Is the sound really that much better having an amp to take care of the power to the speakers since it is designed to do that as opposed to letting the 3808 drive all channels? Also I don't see any volume control on the front of the amp. How does that work? Does it work from the receiver/preamp?

Also if you are driving your main speakers with the amp and some others with your receiver does everything stay in sync or would one just drive all 5 channels from the amp?

Prolly get more response if you make a new thread.

You can make as many threads around here as you want... just look at peter and his 10,000 posts!

No experience with amps here but I am seriously considering the emotiva 2 channel amp for my m80's.

I think the denon 3808 should be more than sufficient for the m60's (and the m80's but hey... amps look cool right?)

I think you will only notice a difference at fairly loud listening levels (depending on the dynamic range of the source). For average listening levels and slightly above I do not think there will be any difference in sound between the denon and the emotiva.

There is nothing wrong with only driving the mains with a seperate more powerful amp and the rest of the speakers with the receiver.... that is what I plan on doing if I can talk the GF into letting me get the 2 channel amp. (the 2 ch version is out of stock and I have requested emotiva to send me an email when it is available.)

Some yamahas do not handle 4ohm loads very well. There is no such issue with the 3808 or Denon receivers in general. You've got plenty of power unless you play highly dynamic music VERY loudly in a huge room.

My 100w Sherwood has no trouble pushing my M80s up into 95db territory (plenty loud for me). I am usually listening at between 75 and 85 db and the receiver barely gets warm.

fred, he has the m60's not the m80s.

In that case, he need at least two more pairs or M60s to suck up all that extra power.

The explanation does still apply to his example and he still dosn't need an ouboard amp.

After reading months and months worth of posts, I find myself pining for a 3808, bad manual and all.

fredk, I'm enjoying my 3808 quite a lot. I have a Diskstation and a HP Mediavault for external storage but they also have built in media servers. I was pleasantly surprised when I hit the Net/USB button, got the menu and saw that the 3808 automatically recognized both music servers and I can play music fron either. It also recognized a music foler on my regular computer and I can play music from there also

I really like the streaming Internet radio stations from all over the world. Some of them have excellent sound quality. I've never had a Denon product before and was kind of worried about the sound quality but with everyone's help I was able to get the settings right and if the music source is high quality it sounds great.

It sounds like a bit of a bear to configure properly, but it sure does have some cool features. It seems like a well thought out product.

Since I have an htpc, I really don't need the network/web capabilities. It still dosn't stop me from wanting one though.