Denon/Marantz 2020 Firmware Update
Sound United has announced their latest firmware update to their high-end Denon and Marantz receivers. It is due out on November 11th 2020. This firmware will provide some significant new features and restore some that were removed over a year ago due to changes to Dolby licensing.
The two key Dolby features that will be restored are:
- 3rd party upmixing on Dolby content
- Center Spread for the Dolby Surround Upmixer (DSU)
The other significant new feature upgrades are:
- DTX:Pro for 13 channel decoding for DTS:X/IMAX DTS:X and enabling Neural:X to expand the input up to 13 channels
- Top of the line receivers will now support Dolby Atmos Height Virtualization, Dolby Surround support for Front Wide speakers and the ability to have 180 Hz crossovers
- New 2020 receivers will have HDMI Fixed Rate Link (FRL)added
So to summarise all the new features that this firmware upgrade provides, we have:
- DTS:X Pro for the Denon AVR-X8500H/X6700H and AVR-A110 and the Marantz SR8015 and AV8805
- Dolby Center Spread for the 2019 and 2020 AVR lineup
- Dolby Surround Front Wide support for AVR-X8500H and AV8805
- Dolby Height Virtualization for the AVR-X8500H and the AV8805
- DTS Neural:X capability on Dolby content for 2019 AVR lineup
- The addition of a 180Hz crossover setting
- Change from 70Hz crossover settings for IMAX to 80Hz for all speakers and 120Hz for LFE
- Screen Saver function for the 2020 AVR lineup.
- Power up volume level bug fix
The firmware update will be rolling out November 11th so be ready. You may obtain this firmware update free of charge simply by turning on the update feature in your receivers menu. Check out these two links on where to find the firmware check feature: Denon receivers and here for Marantz receivers.
See here for my first look at Denon and Marantz Pre-amps and Receivers.
hello,
what’s 3rd party upmixing on dolby content?
best regards,
frans callebaut
Hi Frans,
An upmixer takes an audio signal (two or more channels) and upmixes it using sophisticated software algorithms inside DSP chips to drive all of the speakers in your setup (typically 5.1, 7.1 or more). These algorithms are tailored to suite either movies or music. This produces a surround/immersive effect as if the original source was created from multiple channels. Dolby, DTS and Auro-3D software can do this. However, just over a year ago Dolby decided they did not want other manufactures up mixers processing their audio so they restricted their licensing. They have now removed that licensing restriction.
Hope that clarifies things for you.
Paul
is there a way to get the internet radio working? why they want to charge for itseems silly.
Howard,
I am not too sure what AVR you are referring to and what caused it to fail. If the firmware update caused the Internet Radio to stop working then Sound United needs to issue a fix for free. If it failed in normal operation during the warranty period Sound United has to repair the issue for free. If it failed outside the warranty period then you have to pay for the repair.
Hope the above helps and thank you for visiting my site.
Paul
I have a marantz 7008.. they cut the internet radio and youhave to pay for the service. Any stations i had book marked or added to favorites still work…..but you can’t add anything new you can’t manually add either. I figured if I could go back it would start working again??
Howard,
I had no idea that Sound United had discontinued the free Internet Radio service. You are the first to comment on it. Was it recent? I haven’t used Internet Radio on my Denon AVP for well over a year so I will check it out shortly. Tivoli Radio’s Internet service was discontinued a short while ago without any warning AND you could not even pay for it. This meant that both of my Tivoli products ceased working with no compensation!
I very much doubt that a firmware “downgrade” to a previous version will fix this. Also I do not believe that you can do that unless you can get that version of firmware and a loader. There maybe other issues to. My Denon AVP network firmware upgrades did not allow for going backwards.
With streaming becoming a big business and bottom line pressures, they now want a fee for hosting the service. How much are they charging?
At least it sounds like you can keep what you already had….but for how long?
Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
Paul
I had to go to Vradio…..pay 4$…not lots of money…..but put in Mac address and add stations there and Im still waiting to see them pop up on my receiver…i guess??
Not sure weather I missed something..wasn’t clear.
Marantzradio.com . Was a bunch of stuff that im not sure if it’s working yet?
Has been off for some time at this point. As I said before..anything i had saved to my favorite s..still works..there is no way to add anything new. We will see if these new ones I just paid to add work and show up
..didn’t seem clear to me what was going to happen?
Howard,
Apparently it has been a subscription service for over a year. The service is now provided by vTuner for a fee of $4.00 as you pointed out. Obviously Denon/Marantz did not want to deal with this service anymore and passed it back to the provider. So it now looks as if you have no option but to either subscribe for their full selection of stations or to just keep what you have.
Please let me know if it works for you. Others have subscribed and many seem to have had issues with the service. There is a thread on AVForums that started in Jan 2020. https://www.avforums.com/threads/vtuner-internet-radio-stop-working-marantz-denon-3-case.2269858/
Paul
Ok once the PayPal went through….it popped on you can search and find stuff and save it to your favorite etc. So it did end up working. I’m listening now
Thank you for the update. This is good news, enjoy.
Paul