General Asylum: REVIEW: Denon avr 5700 Receiver by Abdul

Yesterday i went to local audio store to audition the Proceed AVP and
some other stuff. luckily,I have the opportunity to listen to B&K 202,
Denon 5700, Nak Av10, DEnon 3300 and Yamaha Dsp A1 at the same
time in the same through the same speaker! this will give some idea
how those receiver compare to each other. i listen to sarah
maclachan, track 7. (forgot the album names). this song has nice
vocal and alot of low level detail with big soundstage and very good
imaging. perfect for auditioning speaker for me because i listen to it
almost everyday.
i listen to Denon 3300 first, very good indeed. the source was Sony
xa-20 es. digital output. speaker was snell. ($7000/pair don't
remember the model). first impression, very good..
then i switch to Nak Av10. this one sounds better to my ears.
smoother and more involving. the bass was tighter compared to 3300.
vocal is more laid back without losing the detail and transperency.
sounndstage open up a little bit.just the type of sound i like.then i
swithed to the big brother, 5700, obviously not in the same level. this
beast really sounds good. no wonder people are raving about it. the
bass was more tunefull. SS opens wide. Vocal is right up the the
middle of the 2 speakers. more low level resolution. switching to B&K
202 dis not make much differences. in fact i could not really pin point
any pro/con between the two. both are good but they sounded
differently. i prefer the sound of 5700 even i think it was a bit forward
in comparison.the last receiver i listen yerterday was Yamaha dspA1
which is as good as the 5700 and 202. but it was brighter and
sounded more "edgy" which i don't really like. Anyway, those 3
(DSp-A1,202, 5700) receivers belongs to the same category which i
expected and i could rank it as 5700 to be the first, 202 second and
DSP-A1 third. after about 25 minutes of listening and switcing back
and forth with those receiver, i took a listen to the Ref 20/av5000
combo which is in the same room and most likely the most expensive
one in that room. surprisingly, the sound was not really far
"separated" from those receiver. even though it has more controll on
the bass, everything else was almost as good as the receiver.
if i'm still in the dawn of setting up of HT, i might have purchased the
5700 or the B&K. but not the yamaha. and the NAK was not far left
behind these big receiver. i think those who listen a lot to music like
me and ricky might be well appreciated the sounds of NAK Av10 which
only cost $1200.
anyway, i could not believe that the 5700 sounded so refined and
almost make the Ref20/av5000 ashamed of themself. so i went to
another listening room with more high end stuff. this time i listen to
the same track through the top of the line snell ($9000), Proceed
AVP, AMP5 and Sony S-7700 as transport. the first few seconds of
the song just "reboot" my brains... those receivers are not the match
for this setup. may be it was the room, the speakers or the front end,
but this setup sounded amazingly good,it's like having sarah
maclachan singing on the stage in front of me, the soounstage extend
all the way back of the speaker and all of the imperfections of the
recording are revealed. of course, this is a highly tweaked setup with
big bucks components and cables.
i wish i could compare my setup with any of these receiver. BTW, i
could not say that those receiver are in the same class as separates
like some people are saying, maybe they are for sub 3k pre/pro& Amp
combo, but saying that it is in the same class as MC1, EAD,
Parasound just couldn't get into my head. they sounds good...well
very good indeed..but not as well as well matched pre/pro and amp
combo. and they are far cry from the proceed setup which i listened
to.

just wanna share my experience and thought.
for ricky, i think your best bet now is Nak AV10. but it sounded so
good because its amp section is very nice. i don't know if it as
pre/pro is a good idea.
but the 3300 is well packed with features. in fact, i bought one just
to try compare with my setup and play around for a few days. keep in
touch if wanna know more.

thanks for reading.

REVIEW: Denon avr 5700 Receiver Review by Abdul at Audio Asylum