|   Need a BS check on hi-fi salesman | jwd1
May 7, 2002 6:43 AM | | I am currently in the market for a new a/v receiver and I have narrowed it down to these 4 - Yamaha rx-v1200 and 2200, Denon avr-2802 and 3802.
The salesman at a hi-fi store I visited (which doesn't happen to carry Denon), is telling me that while there is nothing wrong with the Denons, Yamaha has been doing surround sound for much longer and their receivers and custom-decoding chipsets are just better at 'localizing the action on screen' (his words).
Any thoughts on this claim, and the comparison between Yamaha and Denon in general? |
| That's quite a truckload! | Keith from Canada
May 7, 2002 6:51 AM | | B.S. plain and simple. Pay no attention to him and PLEASE don't give him commission for a sale after dispensing garbage like that!
Denon and Yamaha are very comparable products and both boast fine reputations. You should sit down and audition both brands and see which strikes you as sounding better to your ears. Better at 'localizing the action on the screen'...HA!!!! That's classic! You'll find very little difference in the DD and DTS decoding between the two units and you certainly won't find that one unit 'localizes' action on the screen any better than the other! |
| re: Need a BS check on hi-fi salesman | Woochifer
May 7, 2002 11:17 AM | | I doubt that Yamaha's been doing surround sound that much longer than Denon given that home theatre receivers have only been around since the mid-1980s. The main difference with Yamaha is that they design and manufacture their own processors (they also make their own chips for digital musical instruments, computer components, and pro audio equipment), and you can do a lot more customizing with the DSP settings. Even though Denon buys its processors through a third party vendor, nearly everyone else in the market does as well, including all of the high end manufacturers. So, that's not really a handicap.
As for the actual performance, localizing the action on the screen? How you position your speakers and how your room acoustics behave will have a lot more to do with "localizing" anything than the receiver will if they do the DD and DTS decoding properly. If anything, the Yamahas are better at making the action sound more spacious when you use the cinema DSP modes (which I use most of the time), but whether or not that's a good thing depends on your preferences and your setup at home.
Between Yamaha and Denon, you'll mostly be splitting hairs since the sound differences between the various models in my listenings have been very subtle. A friend of mine who sells both Yamaha and Denon typically recommends the Yamahas first mainly because of their more consistent reliability over the years. The Denons have generally been very reliable, but they've gone through two ownership changes in the past year, so who knows how that's affected their quality and customer support in the meantime. They had a disastrous product introduction with their DVD players last year; I bought one of them and that experience put a strike against them when I was auditioning receivers a month later. Either way, you should make your own evaluation and sift through all the differences for yourself, and preferably find a dealer that sells both brands under one roof so you can get a more objective picture. |
| re: Need a BS check on hi-fi salesman | DaveHK
May 7, 2002 6:34 PM | | He's full of it, buy and denon and then go back to the store and tell him you did, denon's are better anyway |
| re: Need a BS check on hi-fi salesman | jwd1
May 8, 2002 2:30 PM | | Care to elaborate? In what ways would you say Denons are better than Yamahas? |
| re: Need a BS check on hi-fi salesman | DaveHK
May 8, 2002 5:28 PM | | On the subjective side, I just believe they sound better. I think they are far more user friendly, just a higher quality unit overall. I think the unit is very simple and clear of alot of useless stuff that other companies love to put on a reciever. I have never really found a Yamaha product I really like except for maybe their five string basses.
Spec wise, and I haven't checked since I bought mine which was last year but Denons also have better specs then Yamaha.
But it really breaks down to personal opinion.
Dave ?: |
| Careful Dave... | Keith from Canada
May 9, 2002 6:36 AM | | Of the comments you posted, the only one that wasn't your own personal opinion was
"But it really breaks down to personal opinion."
On the spec side, you'll most often find that Yammie and Denon are close to the same. Of course, I too own a Denon but certainly wouldn't say that Yammie has a lesser product...just a different product. |
| I guess I have a poor view of Yomamaha | DaveHK
May 9, 2002 6:45 AM | | I just don't like alot of Yamaha stuff. It seems they have their hands in too many different products, Motorcycles, stereos, musical instruments, etc. All these products are good, but I'd stick with a company that specializes in a single product, seems logical to me, but is probably illogical, considering Denon is owned by Nippon which makes god know what.
dave ?: |
| Correction, Dave | woodman
May 9, 2002 7:38 AM | | Denon WAS owned by Nippon-Columbia, but was sold last year to an "investment group" in NYC. This does not bode well for all of the Denon devotees that post on these boards just how wonderful Denon is, IMO
woodman |
| I think it's gotten even more entangled now... | Woochifer
May 9, 2002 10:24 AM | | A couple of months ago, someone posted a link to a press release announcing that yet another new corporation has been formed basically merging Denon with Marantz Japan. That holding corporation would remain on board as a partner, and Philips (which still holds a large stake in Marantz) would also have an interest. The arrangement sounded pretty convoluted, although the release said nothing about merging product lines or manufacturing operations. In the short term, I don't see how this can benefit product quality or customer service. Maybe by this time next year or the year after, we'll see some stunningly good products emerge from this new corporation, but I agree with you that in the short term I don't see how Denon's ownership changes can benefit product quality or customer service.
I bought a Denon DVD player last year, unaware of the numerous problems they had going on with their new DVD models at that time (this was right before the company got spun off from Nippon Columbia), and while I got away relatively unscathed (only minor glitches that can be fixed with a firmware update), I was unimpressed with the build quality of the unit. Even the much cheaper Toshiba that I bought for my parents was put together better. Even though I liked Denon's receivers, everybody I asked vouched for Yamaha's build quality and my experience with the DVD player was a strike against Denon. |
| I'm not a "gamblin' man" myself so I would NOT buy | woodman
May 9, 2002 11:06 AM | | any Denon products myself at this point. I'm not holding my breath on anything miraculous coming forth from this new "marriage".
There's a post on the General board from a fella named Caulfield, complaining about a total lack of customer service from the "new Denon"! Often, when companies start to be run by know-nothing "suits", the end result for the poor consumer is NOT pretty, I fear.
woodman |
| I'm not a "gamblin' man" myself so I would NOT buy | porknbeans
May 10, 2002 10:32 AM | | I recently bought an RX-V3000. The dealer was really pushing a Denon 3802. The only reason he would give me is that the Denon had ProlgicII. I chose the Yamaha anyway...at $879, I couldn't pass it up. Love it!
Hey, I DO like Denon as well, but I have owned Yamaha products for SO MANY years with NO problems, I just had to stick with them. |
| Wow, RX-V3000 for $879?! Where? | Woochifer
May 10, 2002 2:21 PM | | That's a sweet deal for a very nice receiver. I think that particular model is very much underrated because it lacks some of the more oft quoted features like DPLII and DTS ES Discrete. But, where it counts -- in the amplifer and the DACs -- the quality of the components is a cut above anything in this price class. I was in a similar dilemma last year, but I decided to stick with Yamaha because I had 14 years of faultless service from my Yammie and friends of mine had similar stories. To me, the burden was on all the other brands to knock Yamaha off the perch. They didn't, and I remain a very satisfied customer. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. |
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