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Denon 4308 a as a preamp only

 

Tony Gorschek
Bronze Member
Username: Turner73

Post Number: 11
Registered: Sep-07
Posted on   
Hello.

I have a question or two...
I am thinking about buying the 4308 (I have a 4306). I like the new formats and have a chance to upgrade now. I was considering buying the A1HD mean denon pre-amp but 6K is a little rich. I have an external amp (Earthquake cinenova grande 300W@8ohm) driving my B&W 803Ds and HTM2 center. Now, I like denon since you get all the bells and whistles for a reasonable sum, but the hifi sound is not the best. Therefore I am considering a good 2ch amp with HT passthrough for hifi. My question is is it possible to get e.g. radio, mp3 etc out of the 4308 to my 2ch amp as a raw analog signal? My point is that I would like to use e.g. the turner etc from the denon...

One more thing, in the post here there is a lot of things, but no one has talked about the sound quality of the 4308 in terms of it being used as a processor (not using its amp), anyone?


Thanks.
 

Frank Abela
Gold Member
Username: Frank_abela

Berkshire UK

Post Number: 2980
Registered: Sep-04
Posted on   
Tony,

Yes, you can do this, BUT (there's always a but)...you need to wire up correctly depending on what you want to do! There are two solutions to this scenario:

1. Wire up the 4308 as per usual using the 4308's Main preouts into the HT bypass input of the Earthquake (unfortunate name at the moment). When you switch over to tuner, you will have to switch over your Earthquake to the HT bypass input and control the volume using the 4308's volume control. This is the simpler solution of the two, but it uses the 4308's preamp section for the tuner.

2. On top of the above wiring scheme, add another lead between the VCR or DVR outputs and an ordinary input (say Tuner) on the Earthquake. Now, when you switch over to Tuner on the 4308, you have a choice. Either you do as above using the HT input on the Earthquake, or you switch to the Tuner input on the Earthquake and use the Earthquake's volume control.

This latter solution bypasses the 4308's volume control and main preamp section, sending its tuner section directly to the DVR/VCR outputs at full line level. However, I believe the sonic results will be variable as follows:

The FM/AM (or any analogue bands) signal should be better with the 2nd option in theory. However this depends on whether the 4308 converts the signal to digital and converts it back to analogue which is entirely possible. As for internet radio, this must go through the 4308's processor section to be converted to analogue. I am not sure if this would be better to route directly through the 4308's preamp at this point.

The only way to know is to try it out using the same cable either way. Then you'll know (and you'll let us know what your results are won't you? :-) ).

Regards,
Frank.
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