Denon and Marantz AV Receivers Updated With AirPlay 2 Support

[fat jez]

I might be switching receivers to Denon, getting a bit sick of Yamaha's incompetence in recent times, MusicCast's lack of reliability, Airpods incompatiblity, Yamaha's WX-010 being one of the worst sounding smart speakers compared to Apple, Sonos, Denon. No Airplay 2 update for any Yamaha receiver as far as I know. It's time I think?

If you want something that will sound a little better with music, consider a Marantz. Denon and Marantz share the same core technology (both owned by the same parent company), but the Marantz features its own circuitry on the outputs (known as HDAM or Hyper Dynamic Amplifier Module ) rather than using an IC. This is said to improve the audio quality by increasing dynamic range and reducing noise.

 

[AZMecha]

Wow I have a Denon 2310 CI 7.1 Dual zone now 7yrs old... But still rocking the house!!!!

What models would be a comparable replacement?

 

[iAdamator]

Hope the X4400H has it! Will have to download it in the morning

According to this site it will support it.

 

[lec0rsaire]

So a completely noob question, if someone was evaluating getting an audio system for general TV consumption, I am guessing a receiver is a necessary starting point. Once that is bought, does it make sense to buy standalone 5 speakers or would home pods be able to simulate equally good sound. I am also assuming you can't use Home-pods with TV unless you have a receiver?

Yamaha and Polk are your friend. The best bang per buck if you don’t want to spend more than $600-700. A $300 Yamaha receiver is good enough unless you have a really large room. They now have full 4K HDR support. The Polks are on sale pretty often.

Compared to the quality of internal speakers or even those sound bars simulating surround, it is night and day. 5.1 is still fine.

 

[mudflap]

I'm hoping Yamaha updates some of their receivers as well.

 

[extrachrispy]

This is in no way a common issue. Most setups will be perfectly fine. The only way I can see this being an issue is if you have a cheap, junky TV with very high input lag. And then again, most decent receivers have adjustable audio/video delay settings. Which I don’t even have to use with my Sony TV, Denon receiver, and Apple TV. Non-issue for 99% of people.

And yet, the fact that I hit it with a high-end Sony TV suggests that your claim lacks evidence. Drilling down for hours on home theater forums suggested to me that it was indeed common in 2016, when I bought my current gear.

 

[vipergts2207]

And yet, the fact that I hit it with a high-end Sony TV suggests that your claim lacks evidence. Drilling down for hours on home theater forums suggested to me that it was indeed common in 2016, when I bought my current gear.

Hang on, you're the one making the claim here, saying this is a common issue. You can't prove a negative, so you're the one that needs to provide evidence of widespread issues. In any case, from what I read you didn't say you had any issues with your receiver.

As far as home theater forums go, AVS is probably the biggest one on the internet. Searching the 2016 Denon receiver thread for the word "sync", returns 163 posts with that word out of 15,580 posts, or 1% of the posts. Of course a cursory overview of some of the posts shows that many of them refer not to audio/video or lip sync, but to things like Bravia sync or wireless HEOS devices staying in sync. If you want to take a wider view, only 487 threads out of the 121,944 in the receiver sub-forum (0.4%) mention the word sync. Again, you can't prove a negative, but if you could this is as close as you can get.

 

[extrachrispy]

Hang on, you're the one making the claim here, saying this is a common issue.

Hang on, you're the one falsely claiming that I claimed it was a common issue. Although you may be quite good at erecting straw men, logical arguments do not appear to be your strong suit.

 

[vipergts2207]

Hang on, you're the one falsely claiming that I claimed it was a common issue. Although you may be quite good at erecting straw men, logical arguments do not appear to be your strong suit.

Did you forget that you said:

Drilling down for hours on home theater forums suggested to me that it was indeed common in 2016

And even without specifically saying that, just bringing it up in the first place implies that it's common and something that one should be concerned with. Or perhaps whenever someone you know goes to the beach, you warn them to watch out for sharks even though there are only 19 shark bites in the U.S. per year out of the millions and millions of beach goers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[extrachrispy]

Did you forget that you said:

(quoted text that I wrote AFTER you made your initial false claim that I had claimed the phenomenon was common. Honesty is clearly not your strong suit.)

And even without specifically saying that, just bringing it up in the first place implies that it's common and something that one should be concerned with. Or perhaps whenever someone you know goes to the beach, you warn them to watch out for sharks even though there are only 19 shark bites in the U.S. per year out of the millions and millions of beach goers. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Someone appears to have an insufferable need to be right, despite being wrong.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Solved this years ago with a wonderful product called Apple Airport Express and my 1978 Marantz 1060b

The original AppleTV could control multiple rooms with Airport Express. iTunes has always been able to do this as well (no Airplay "2" needed). It's the iOS devices (newer AppleTVs) that have always SUCKED so badly in so many ways compared to the original other than resolution (e.g. no local extras for years, no multi-room control, no album "plus" support, unable to output 44.1kHz even (WTF!?) as everything gets converted to 48kHz (Gen1 could play DTS Music CDs no problem without even trying; newer ones make NOISE), no significant local storage, inability to display sub-menus for groups of movies (gen1 would show a folder if the movies were all in the same "show"). AFAIK, even the 4K ATV still can't do most of those....

Then there's the matter of passing proper passthrough signals for 3rd party media players like MrMC (Apple and Amazon simply refuse to accommodate PROPER home theater signals and only now is Apple finally testing out Atmos. (Nvidia Shield will pass any signal but MVC 3D; the Zidoo and a few other units can even do that as well). TRUE home theater? Look elsewhere. Crapple is for phone users with earpods, not serious home theater or computing or anything else "Pro". It's amateur hour at the zoo these days.

Apple USED to make nice products outside phones. No longer. Junky, buggy overpriced throttled notebooks.... garbage. Massively overpriced phones. No thanks. I'm starting to think if something doesn't change, this MacMini will probably be my last Mac. MacOS is getting increasingly pushy towards the App store too. I don't want a closed operating system. That's worse than Microsoft forcing updates and keylogging for advertising, etc. No open software would be a joke OS (like ChromeOS or something).

 

[WhiteHawk]

Well I updated my X2400H in my bedroom, haven’t tested yet but would really have liked the X4400W to have this more but not available, disappointed there. I think that’s a 2016 model with AirPlay so I’m sure they could add it.

 

[vipergts2207]

Someone appears to have an insufferable need to be right, despite being wrong.

You already admitted to thinking it was a common issue, so I’m not exactly sure how you twist that into me being wrong.

The fact remains and my original point was, contrary to the intent of your original post, nobody here should be needlessly concerned about A/V sync issues if they buy a receiver. Doing so is akin to worrying about your plane crashing or being bitten by a shark. Sure these things happen, but they’re relatively rare. It's FUD, and left unchecked, will have uninformed members here parroting, "don't buy a receiver, they cause lip sync issues."

 

[himanshumodi]

Yamaha and Polk are your friend. The best bang per buck if you don’t want to spend more than $600-700. A $300 Yamaha receiver is good enough unless you have a really large room. They now have full 4K HDR support. The Polks are on sale pretty often.

Compared to the quality of internal speakers or even those sound bars simulating surround, it is night and day. 5.1 is still fine.

Thanks. Got some valuable inputs here. What you suggested is what I thought would be the way to go. But these new fangled solutions seem tempting for their lack of wires. Unless it gets too expensive.

 

[lec0rsaire]

Thanks. Got some valuable inputs here. What you suggested is what I thought would be the way to go. But these new fangled solutions seem tempting for their lack of wires. Unless it gets too expensive.

It all depends on the setup of your room and if you have the ability to hide the speaker wire. Ideally the best solution is to run heavy gauge speaker wire through the walls but this has to be done when the place is being built since tearing down walls to do this is expensive and a hassle.

I still think having a traditional setup is worth it. You can always upgrade individual speakers i.e. better center channel or floor front speakers when you can afford it. Even upgrading to a better receiver when you outgrow it.

 

[iAdamator]

Hey all.

I just very recently got a Denon x3400h and I did do an update on the firmware when I got it. I honestly don’t know how to tell if I even have AirPlay 2 on it.

What exactly is the benefits of AirPlay 2 on an AVR? I don’t feel I really understand what AirPlay 2 does.


My Apple TV is hooked up to the very same receiver so the benefits of AirPlay 2 may be lost on me anyway due to my setup.

 

[vipergts2207]

Hey all.

I just very recently got a Denon x3400h and I did do an update on the firmware when I got it. I honestly don’t know how to tell if I even have AirPlay 2 on it.

What exactly is the benefits of AirPlay 2 on an AVR? I don’t feel I really understand what AirPlay 2 does.


My Apple TV is hooked up to the very same receiver so the benefits of AirPlay 2 may be lost on me anyway due to my setup.

AP2’s biggest benefit is being able to play to multiple speakers/receivers from your iOS devices at the same time. It enables whole home audio without locking you into a single manufacturer like Sonos.

 

[Wilburx3]

And I still can't send audio via airplay 2 to my rMBP.

 

[iAdamator]

AP2’s biggest benefit is being able to play to multiple speakers/receivers from your iOS devices at the same time. It enables whole home audio without locking you into a single manufacturer like Sonos.

I guess that means for me the benefits of AirPlay 2 is basically lost on me. The 2 AirPlay devices in my house, my Apple TV 4K, and my Denon AVR are hooked up together so me playing a source of audio to them both would be redundant.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

And yet the AppleTV Gen1 could do the SAME THING with good old Airplay 1 (I suppose it needed iTunes running to do it, but then Apple STILL requires iTunes running to watch your own content and they don't allow it on a NAS to this day (save music only). It's one of the reasons I switched to KODI, but that has some issues as well sometimes. But at least it can passthrough Atmos/X/Auro3D with total aplomb on something like the NVidia Shield.

 

[extrachrispy]

Thanks. Got some valuable inputs here. What you suggested is what I thought would be the way to go. But these new fangled solutions seem tempting for their lack of wires. Unless it gets too expensive.

I like RocketFish for (semi-)wireless rear surrounds. The transmitter hooks up to the home theater outputs, and the receiver can go under your sofa or at the back of the room., feeding wires to the surrounds at either end.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Wires are definitely a PITA. My home theater is now running 9.1.6 (that's 15 speakers and a subwoofer with 6 height speakers and will have three rows of seating once I get my new furniture in). I've got wires channeled all around the room and not through the walls, using wire molds painted, etc. to run along the base board and door frames, etc. with drapes covering much of it (to block the white walls out and absorb reflective sound like in a typical real theater). But the sound with Dolby Atmos, DTS X and Auro-3D (My system supports all three immersive formats) the sound positioning is incredible.

 

[HermanMunster]

And yet the AppleTV Gen1 could do the SAME THING with good old Airplay 1 (I suppose it needed iTunes running to do it, but then Apple STILL requires iTunes running to watch your own content and they don't allow it on a NAS to this day (save music only). It's one of the reasons I switched to KODI, but that has some issues as well sometimes. But at least it can passthrough Atmos/X/Auro3D with total aplomb on something like the NVidia Shield.

If you want to stream video from a NAS to the Apple TV without using iTunes you can do it with this app called “Infuse”

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

If you want to stream video from a NAS to the Apple TV without using iTunes you can do it with this app called “Infuse”

I could always use MrMC or Plex or any other app. That doesn't change the fact the basic Apple software has required iTunes running on a computer (server version simply won't due) since its inception. Apple engineers wanted to allow them, but Jobs and later Cook wouldn't hear of it. "Make them dependent on Apple!" is their motto. Make everything non-standard as you can get away with and create dependency.

I just run KODI on an NVidia Shield instead. It can handle Atmos, X and Auro3D just fine along with 4K (and Zidoo can do 3D as well using the Kodi interface).

 

[Farns]

Has anyone tried sending audio to the speaker using the Airplay 2 while watching a video?

I use my two homepods to listen on my upstairs TV all the time but I’d like to hook my ATV directly to my projector and end audio wirelessly to a receiver. I busted my HDMI cable that’s running through my ceiling and for the life of me I can’t fish another through. I am sending video to the PJ using HDMI over cat5 but I feel like the video is a little soft.

If someone has tried it - what audio format is it sending? PCM? 2.0? 5.1? Something proprietary?