Denon and Marantz introduce 8K HDMI 2.1 upgrade for AV receivers

By
published

The 3-port switcher will cost £179

Denon AVS-3
(Image credit: Sound United)

Denon and Marantz have announced a pair of new 3-port 8K HDMI switchers that will give owners of the brands' compatible AVRs the option to attach up to three 8K and 4K@120Hz sources to an existing home cinema system.

The Denon AVS-3 and Marantz VS3003 switchers have been designed to feature a compact footprint and come with detachable wall-mount brackets, as well as IR repeater capability for rack installations or discreet placement.

The switchers are compatible with HDMI CEC (Consumer Electronics Control), which means they will automatically turn on and off, and switch inputs for HDMI CEC enabled devices. There’s also a dedicated remote control included and the option to control both switchers using the connected AV receiver’s remote.

The home cinema amps compatible with the Denon AVS-3 are: Denon AVC-A110, Denon AVC-X8500HA, Denon AVC-X6700H, Denon AVC-X4700H, Denon AVC-X3700H, Denon AVR-X2700H / DAB, Denon AVR-S960H.

Those that will work with the Marantz VS3003 are: Marantz AV8805A, Marantz AV7706, Marantz SR8015, Marantz SR7015, Marantz SR6015, Marantz SR5015 / DAB, Marantz NR1711.

The new products will be of particular interest to gamers with next-generation consoles, especially after Denon and Marantz's troubles with last year's notorious HDMI 2.1 bug that caused a loss of picture when 4K@120Hz signals were sent from an Xbox Series X or Nvidia RTX30-series graphics cards.

The Denon AVS-3 and Marantz VS3003 HDMI switchers come in a brushed aluminium finish and will be available in October 2021 for £180 ($200, about AU$350).

MORE

Denon 2021 AV receiver line-up: everything you need to know

Our pick of the best home cinema amplifiers

Best surround sound systems 2021

Mary Stone

Mary is a staff writer at What Hi-Fi? and has over a decade of experience working as a sound engineer mixing live events, music and theatre. Her mixing credits include productions at The National Theatre and in the West End, as well as original musicals composed by Mark Knopfler, Tori Amos, Guy Chambers, Howard Goodall and Dan Gillespie Sells. 

3 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Toraneko
    Hi,

    Firstly, I have been an avid reader & follower of What HiFi since the 1980's but I feel I should point out that several of your articles relating to the so called HDMI 2.1 bug are not accurate.

    See this video from Phil Jones at Sound United showing the Denon AVR(C)-X4700H processing 4K@120Hz connected to a RTX3080 without issue. blWc3MDwD8kView: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blWc3MDwD8k

    Note that is dated October 2020. I've also seen YouTube videos from several PC gaming websites successfully test this.

    Regarding the issue with Xbox series X here is an excellent video from Vincent Teoh ( HDTVtest ) explaining that
    it's really an Xbox signal format(DSC compression) issue not really a fault of the Panasonic chip.

    e4N95PynVh8View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4N95PynVh8

    I follow quite a few AudioVideophile related forums & Websites which generally show high quality & accuracy, to that end, I would also like to see What HiFi present some real technical testing results in your reviews to go along with the subjective & colourful descriptive language which is useful but paints an incomplete picture when presented in the absence of technical information. I sent you an e-mail as well. :)

    kind regards,

    Shane Enniss ( Electronics Technician, AudioVideophile & allround Tech geek )

    P.S. still waiting for a review of the new Polk R700 speakers https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/joypixels/emoji-assets@v6.0.0/png/64/1f609.png
    Reply
  • Bindou
    Le débit max acceptée par la carte est 32Gbps, tandis que la norme 2.1 est 40Gbps. Pour l'instant, seule la Xbox exploite pleinement la bande passante. Mais le contenu 8K utilisera aussi cela. Ainsi, Denon a trompé ses utilisateurs, cet ampli n'est pas compatible 8K. De plus les cartes ont d'autres problèmes, comme des micros coupures aléatoires sur les sources à framerate variable 4k@60i/s. C'est la catastrophe, et aucun remboursement n'est accepté. Mon ampli à 3000€ est au placard.
    Reply
  • Toraneko
    Now that I've translated your French. To begin with you miss my point and that is that Denon , Marantz,etc 2020 receivers will indeed pass video from games input from PS5 & Nvidia RTX30XX series graphics cards at either 4k@120fps or 8k@30fps, 8k@30fps only requires 24.48Gbps, Denon & Marantz support up to 40Gbps see video, so Denon, etc are not lying at all.
    The Xbox uses DSC coding to output it's 8k supposedly at 60fps, this requires more than 48Gbs so Xbox must use Data Stream Compression to achieve this. It also occurred to me that Xbox series X must use DSC processing for 4K@120fps(Hence the Blank screen?) which seems entirely pointless when you look at the HDMI 2.1 specs. Your arguement is a really moot point as there is zero 8K content of any kind at this time and unlikely for the next few years. There are no games at all that are coded in 8k let alone 60 or 120fps. By the time there are your Xbox series x will no doubt have been supersceeded by yet another more powerful console. :) They've gotta keep the money wheel spining mate. ;) Nothing at all wrong with your amp you're missing out on far more important things than 8k such as Dolby ATMOS & DTS:X also when the current gen 4K TV's catch up you'll have VRR, ALLM, QMS & QFT all of which your Denon amp supports.
    Reply