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- Sony STR-K790 5.1 Silver Surround sound home theater Dolby RECEIVER - $60 (Wichita)
- Checking if the site connection is secure
- High-quality sound — in one room or three
- Denon AVR-X8500H 13.2CH IMAX Enhanced AV Receiver
- Sony Receiver and Klipsch Home Theater Surround Sound System - $250 (Derby)
- Remote & App Control
The whole setup and calibration of the receiver, HEOS speakers and Alexa took about 90 minutes. The receiver's menu is loaded, with more adjustments possible than I've seen for any other receiver. It's at this point that the online owner's manual not only comes in handy, but almost becomes essential.

Performing operations on this unit during playback of a Dolby Vision signal may cause variance in the color display of the menu screen and operations content. In an actual listening room, you'd find that some speakers play louder than others when fed the same amount of power. In equal power mode, you'll hear these differences in loudness as they naturally occur between speakers.
Sony STR-K790 5.1 Silver Surround sound home theater Dolby RECEIVER - $60 (Wichita)
This was the receiver in my home theater until I replaced it just a few weeks ago. Includes remote, manual, and Audyssey microphone for auto setup! On page 340 of the owners guide it states the power output is 280watts X 2 channels into 4 ohms. HEOS Built-in technology lets you access all kinds of different content through the AVR-X8500HA. Listen to internet radio stations, or to popular streaming services like Pandora®, Spotify®, and TIDAL. The AVR-X8500HA isn't just a stellar choice for watching movies — it's exceptional with music, too.
Play the same music throughout your home, or listen to something different in each room. I connected the new Denon to a LG OLED 4K UHD TV , a DirecTV Genie HD DVR, a Roku Ultra streaming media player, an Oppo UDP-203 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc Player, and a 7.1.4 speaker system from Monitor Audio and RBH Sound. I connected the source devices via HDMI and the speakers using cables from WireWorld. I used the custom amp assign feature during setup to designate all the speakers, and I also bi-amped the main L/R tower speakers to take advantage of the two remaining available amp channels. There are numerous preset speaker configurations available, but the custom assignment capability provides the ultimate flexibility.
Checking if the site connection is secure
After the helicopter drops off one of the characters, you can hear birds chirping directly overhead as he makes his way along a river in the wilderness. All told, Denon has tried to make the AVR-X8500H as future proof as possible. At the same time, Denon hasn't left owners of legacy equipment without HDMI connections out in the cold either, because the AVR-X800H still provides coaxial, optical, and analog input options. Had plans to use it in other location when those receivers died but they haven’t so this one has been stored. FYI power cord was severed many years ago in moving accident but it was spliced back together no I’ll ef ...

Denon's latest flagship home theater receiver is a 13-channel beast built for high-performance surround sound. To see what the potential of the AVR-X8500H was in reproducing surround music, I listened to the track "Ave Maria" performed by Cantus & Tove Ramlo-Ystad on the Pure Audio Blu-ray disc Spes . This album was originally recorded by Morten Lindburg in DXD 24bit/352.8kHz and then down mixed to 9.1 Auro-3D in 24bit/96kHz for the disc. The album was nominated for a 2015 Grammy for best surround sound album.
High-quality sound — in one room or three
It’s available for a nominal rental fee, and includes a $25 Crutchfield merchandise credit. SpeakerCompare tailors your listening experience to the exact headphones you have, so that what you hear is comparable to auditioning speakers side-by-side in person. Knowing which model headphones you’re using lets us remove any sonic coloring from your experience. It is one of the cleanest surround sound recordings you will ever hear, with an extremely low noise floor, and the Denon did not disappoint in recreating the recording space inside the Uranienborg Church in Oslo. The Denon and 7.1.4 speaker setup dropped me right into a chair in the midst of the circle of singers, exactly as Cantus was positioned for the recording.

This film was scripted in the style of a Broadway musical with an almost otherworldly aesthetic, telling much of Barnum's story through song and dance. As of this writing, there are only about 20 Blu-ray movie discs and 50 Blu-ray Pure Audio music discs available encoded with Auro-3D soundtracks, so switching won't need to be performed very often. The Auro-3D format is the little guy in this proverbial David and Goliath battle between Auro-3D and Dolby.
Audio Section
The resulting sound is clear, smooth, and ultra-detailed, with tight bass and impactful dynamics. Rated at a beefy 150 watts per channel , the AVR-X8500HA can drive stand-mount, floor-standing, or custom-integrated speakers with authority. I think you may be able to use the Zone options, but I am no expert. I have had the receiver for three months, I am still discovering interesting features. To use Roon you will need a Roon Core running on the same network as the Denon receiver.

We still believe that the gold standard for auditioning speakers is hearing them in your own environment — that’s why we offer a 60-day money-back guarantee. In equal volume mode, we've made the loudness of each speaker about the same. This gives you a more direct comparison of subtle voicing differences between speakers. Virtual audio technology allows you to compare sonic characteristics between speakers so you can make a more informed shopping decision. You could do it provided that your 4 side surrounds are two left and two right side surrounds that are located so that they can use the same channel information.
And with a promise to provide upgrade paths for future technologies like eARC and 8K , Denon seems committed to making this new receiver as futureproof as possible. The price may seem expensive at first glance, but perhaps not so much when you consider all the technology already provided and the future upgrades on the way. With the introduction of the AVR-X8500H, Denon has thrown down a challenge to all the competitor brands to catch them if they can. But for now, the Denon AVR-X8500H stands above all other mainstream AV receivers.
The remote for the AVR-X8500H is similar but with just a few tweaks from the remote for the AVR-X7200WA. The AVR-X8500H remote has the HEOS button to access connected HEOS-enabled speakers, built-in music streaming services, Internet radio, or any media servers you have connected to the Denon over your network. Also, there are four macro buttons at the bottom of the remote that you can program to perform various functions. For audio, the AVR-X8500H has the same reference-class AKM AK4490EQ 32-bit DACs as its predecessor.
Selecting a Bluetooth input source in any Zone will terminate the connection between the Denon receiver and Bluetooth headphones. The other seven HDMI inputs support 4K at 60 frames per second — perfect for high-quality sources like a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray player, or an Apple TV. To help you choose the right speakers, we recommend using Crutchfield’s SpeakerCompare Listening Kit. It includes a pair of studio-quality headphones, and a guide to getting the most out of your session, and a few other necessary items. We’ve carefully chosen the components of this kit to ensure a crystal-clear listening experience.
The AVR-X8500H also features two newly developed dual-core SHARC DSPs from Analog Devices to handle surround decoding and Audyssey room correction algorithms. For those wanting to use external amplifiers instead of those onboard, there is a new pre-amp mode whereby the amplifier section is disconnected to minimize signal contamination. Prior to using the HEOS system, you'll need to setup up your free HEOS account. Your HEOS account remembers all your settings and preferences such as all your music service logins and HEOS playlists. When you'd like to add multiple smartphone or tablet controllers to your system, you only need to sign in to each new device with your HEOS user name and password.
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