maclib99 wrote:

I have a Denon AVR-E400 Home Theater receiver. It has Airplay and can be fed music over my wi-fi controlled by my iPhone. It sounds great but I'm to the point of tweaking and tuning.

An easy tweak would be to use DLNA instead of AirPlay. In case your library consists of high-resolution music, just keep in mind that AirPlay downsamples any resolutions above 96 kHz. Since your particular Denon is DLNA-certified and supports up to 192 kHz, you should use that protocol instead to ensure you're not limited by AAPL-proprietary nonsense.

maclib99 wrote:

Thanks mtymous1. I'll research how to use DLNA.

Are the music files on your phone, computer, NAS, all of the above, other?

maclib99 wrote:

I do have a pretty extensive computer based selection of music as well.

FWIW, I've been using DLNA for 11+ years, but it's been out on the market since 2003 - which is before AirTunes came to market. I highly recommend you try it. There is a plethora of DLNA-server solutions that painlessly install in a few minutes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_UPnP_AV_media_servers.

(I have tried a number of them, but found myself liking Universal Media Server the best.)

If you have high-resolution files above 96kHz, I also recommend conducting "DLNA vs. AirPlay" tests to realize what you've been missing.

maclib99 wrote:

The iPhone has the settings for EQ like Jazz, Hip Hop, Pop, etc. I've played with those but never really found a happy medium so I have it turned off completely. The Denon has a few similar settings as well but I keep it set at Pure.

Agreed. I do not prefer color treatments to my music, and certainly wouldn't let Apple do it if I did!

I have multiple devices that are Airplay Equipped and support DLNA and use both. 95% of the time I use Airplay and the only time I use DLNA is if I am planning to listen to Hi-Res music.

If you have music on a iPhone, iPad, computer or are streaming CD Quality or lower music (Pandora, Spotify, Tidal, Deezer, etc...) AirPlay is fine. It has no negative impact on sound quality and is reasonably stable. But it is capped at CD Resolution. I like the fact that you are simply using your usual iDevice interface and it is nice and easy to use. I use it regularly streaming to Marantz & Denon units (I have 5) and to Apple TVs.

If you have any hi-res music files (I have about 50) then AirPlay will downscale to CD quality and is therefore, undesirable. You will want to use DLNA as your streaming service, but I would only play those off of a computer since your phone is capped at CD quality. You would be wasting space with MUCH larger files.

This only applies to hi-res files, not "hi-res" streaming services since Deezer and Tidal only achieve CD quality streaming. Pandora and even premium spotify are below CD quality.

DLNA works fine with Denon Receivers. You can download the Denon App and if you have music on an attached PC on your network and have network sharing on, the Denon app will find it. This will be under "Music Server" on your Denon receiver. I spent a lot of time trying to find 3rd party software that works with Marantz and Denon and found the basic Windows service worked best with the Denon/Marantz app.

For DLNA your folder hierarchy is critical here. If you have say a folder with all the artists in it, it will take forever for it to load and scroll. You can try using the interface on the Denon but it tends to be very slow loading as well. See if you can sort by artist into folders alphabetically and it will greatly increase access time.

One other note, Denon & Marantz are owned by the same company, D&M holding and the apps are identical from either company but are skinned differently with different branding. If you have Denon and Marantz devices on the same network, either app will run both brand's devices which is why I am lumping them together.

I am not a huge fan of those DSPs/EQs that are part of the programming. I typically listen in either Stereo or Direct mode. Direct is nice because it shuts off all extraneous circuits and is nice and clean. If for some reason I feel like listening in multi-channel I use Dolby Pro-Logic II Music.

You can use Pure Direct but I believe that the default is with the subwoofer off. In the menu's you can find a setting to turn on the subwoofer in Pure Direct mode. That will just be the music through the onboard DAC.

I remember years ago when I got my first multi-channel system which had a Carver preamp and thinking those funky DSP settings like Jazz and Stadium were so cool for about the first 2 days I had the system and then never used them again.