Bought a seven year old AV amp... and it's bloody awesome!!
Bought a seven year old AV amp... and it's bloody awesome!!
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tdm34

Original Poster:

7,479 posts

234 months

Thursday 13th August 2015
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Decided to update the old Denon AVC-A11SR that had replaced an Onkyo 838, the Denon blew the Onk away! but I fancied looking at an Atmos amp, anyhoo after listening to several (Denon 7200, Onkyo 3030, Yamaha 3040) realised that the old Denon actually sounded better! also I couldn't countenance having to put speakers in the ceiling, so thought "look for an oldie" so set too and found a Yamaha DSP-Z11 for a £1000 and do you know what? it's bloody awesome...

Only thing wrong is it weighs nearly six stone!! .....



And Treacle the Cat helped with the install as well...




Patch1875

5,043 posts

156 months

Friday 14th August 2015
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Great bit of kit still.

I've got a lesser model of a similar vintage RX-V2700 which I still love.

Wouldn't buy any other brand of amp they just handle movies and music superbly.

legzr1

3,885 posts

163 months

Friday 14th August 2015
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Have you tried going 'digital' from your Yam CD player using the Z11 Dacs?

Troubleatmill

10,210 posts

183 months

Friday 14th August 2015
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Well.... if you ever get into Valve amps... ( Most FM radio stations still use them )..... you will find that technology from about 90- 100 years ago is actually bloody good.

The fewer electronic components that can interfere and change the music signal .... the closer you are to how it was originally meant to sound.

And... if you have a look inside most amps... there's an awful lot of £0.001 resistors in there.



tdm34

Original Poster:

7,479 posts

234 months

Friday 14th August 2015
quotequote all
legzr1 said:
Have you tried going 'digital' from your Yam CD player using the Z11 Dacs?
I have, but the CDX993s Probit Dac gives a slightly warmer sound, with a more extended bass, connected with quality analogue cables and using the amps pure direct function, i'd say the CD player sounds slightly better, but i've not had much time to play yet...

But it's a dramatic improvement on the Denon AVC-A11SR that it replaced..

Esseesse

9,027 posts

232 months

Tuesday 18th August 2015
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Troubleatmill said:
Well.... if you ever get into Valve amps... ( Most FM radio stations still use them )..... you will find that technology from about 90- 100 years ago is actually bloody good.
It is. Also, IIRC, for reasons I cannot explain off the top of my head, distortion in valve amps tends to be even order harmonics, rather than odd order harmonics that you get with a modern non-valve amp. This means that even though a more modern amp may measure better, the valve amp has a good chance of sounding better because even order harmonic distortion sounds more agreeable (so you don't notice it as such anyway).

Adamski69

175 posts

134 months

Tuesday 1st September 2015
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That is ball achingly tasty!!!

My Onkyo 905N is in having the HDMI board repaired at the moment so I have had to blow the dust off my previous amp which was hiding on a shelf up stairs. It's a Yamaha DSP A2 and it pains me to say that although it is simpler, less powerful, less channels etc etc etc, it sounds better than the big Onk! So much warmer...

May have to keep an eye out for one of those goliath Z11's...