I own a Denon 3803, Paradigm Studio 100 in the front, Studio 20 in the rear, CC center channel and PW2200 subwoofer. The sound levels when listening to the tuner or Cd's is OK. However, the volume level for TV or DVD is much softer. This difference occurs even when I listen to the music in 5 channel stereo. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
This is not an unusual in my experience. TV varies greatly from station to station and DVD's have a much wider dynamic range than cd's or radio so it takes more juice to produce the same sound level. When I watch movies on digital cable I often have to turn up the volume to -6 or -4 in surround mode while a cd will only require a setting of -20 to -24 or so.
With this sort of setup, does anyone feel that the speakers are underpowered. It is set up in a medium sized room. Would the anthem be a better match sonically
Hm...Interesting. I have that same feeling of the underpower watts from Denon. I have the Klipsch RF25, RC25, RS25 & RW10. Some how I have to turn the volume up to -14 to -12 for movies and Music is at -20. Is this normal. Well, If it is the power what Amp would go good with this Denon. Any suggestion is great. Oh, I just bought these 3-4 weeks ago. Brand new so, could it be that it has not break in??
Those levels relate to our Marantz Sr-7300 at normal - average listening levels. I don't know about the 3803, but the 7300 goes up to +18 with speaker levels set at zero db. It doesn't take much over those levels to become very loud.
This phenomenon is the same on most receivers. They have more power for each channel in stereo mode, and therefore you don't have to turn up the volume as much. It's the same on my NAD T760.
It's not a bug, just a feature of the higher output in stereo mode.