7 replies to this topic

[howery53]

I have been a long time owner of a Harman-Kardon AVR-7000, a 110 watt per channel (5ch) , 25Kg behemoth, that sounded good but had little going for it in the video area.  It has ,however, been giving me a little grief lately by having an intermittent fault in its digital decoder.  So after a lot of soul searching, much research and lots of wife begging, I decided to buy myself a new toy.  After opting out of the Onkyo buy group (and unfortunately the Krix one as well), I ended up selecting the Marantz SR-8001.
      As I know a lot of you people out there are interested in this model, I thought I'd post a few short impressions.   This amp is a light weight compared to the H-K, weighing only 15Kgs and this did concern me at first.  Both amps have a toroidal transformer, but the Marantz transformer is physically smaller and is probably a lot lighter.  My concern that the Marantz power supply may let the amp down has been totally unfounded.  The one clear area where the Marantz outshines the H-K is in its sound - good airy crisp sound.  The H-K is good but the Marantz is a clear notch ahead.
       I am a little disappointed with some of the setup up parameters on offer with the Marantz. There is no option to set different speaker sizes for different inputs as you get with the H-K.  There is no  subwoofer crossover frequency for each individual speaker (ala Onkyo) . There is no option to fix the turn-on volume level, a feature I sorely miss.  There are some features that are badly explained and that I still don't fully understand, while others are given pages of explanation.  There is no simple way to switch the sub in or out whilst listening in stereo.
      Do I sound like I am disappointed with the amp ???  Far from it.  I chose the Marantz because I thought it would give me the best sound for my money and it is in my opinion, money well spent.  And I haven't even got around to bi-amping it yet!!!

[OLDCOOT]

Glad to hear you are happy with the new pride & joy.

Which other amps did you listen to apart from the Marantz? Onkyo it seems. Any others? I tossed up between denon and HK and went for the denon as I got it at a bargain price. I did like the HK gear but just had a niggling doubt about build quality. Never got to compare denon with marantz though. Many say the marantz gear is one of the better brands for music and I've always regretted that I didn't audition them. I sort of figured at the time that since denon and marantz came from the same stables they must sound similar so didn't bother. I'm still curious about that.

[howery53]

OLDCOOT, on Aug 6 2007, 04:43 PM, said:

Glad to hear you are happy with the new pride & joy.

Which other amps did you listen to apart from the Marantz? Onkyo it seems. Any others? I tossed up between denon and HK and went for the denon as I got it at a bargain price. I did like the HK gear but just had a niggling doubt about build quality. Never got to compare denon with marantz though. Many say the marantz gear is one of the better brands for music and I've always regretted that I didn't audition them. I sort of figured at the time that since denon and marantz came from the same stables they must sound similar so didn't bother. I'm still curious about that.

I did audition two denons, the 2807 and the 3806.  They sounded quite nice but I thought they were a little uninspiring.  It sure is hard to put into words.  Why is it that two pieces of gear that theoretically have a flat frequency response can sound so different.  Be a dull world if they all sounded the same though.!!!

[Alien]

Hi howery53,

This amp is on my short list to audition. Replacing my SR7300 which will go to my sister in law so it was excellent to see your comments. Do you mind letting us know what sort of speakers you are driving with it & can you give us an update after you have lived with it for a bit longer.

Thanks

Paul

[howery53]

Alien, on Aug 8 2007, 08:01 AM, said:

Hi howery53,

This amp is on my short list to audition. Replacing my SR7300 which will go to my sister in law so it was excellent to see your comments. Do you mind letting us know what sort of speakers you are driving with it & can you give us an update after you have lived with it for a bit longer.

Thanks

Paul

No worries Paul,  Currently I am running the following speakers : Wharfedale Diamond 9.6 (mains), Aaron CC-240(centre) And Aaron SS-120 (rears) with an Accusound sub.  The mains & centre are 6 ohm, not sure about the rears.  I do intend to upgrade (again) when I can afford it to either VAF or Krix but that is some way off.

[Docfeelg00d2000]

howery53, on Aug 5 2007, 08:14 PM, said:

I am a little disappointed with some of the setup up parameters on offer with the Marantz. There is no option to set different speaker sizes for different inputs as you get with the H-K.  There is no  subwoofer crossover frequency for each individual speaker (ala Onkyo) . There is no option to fix the turn-on volume level, a feature I sorely miss.  There are some features that are badly explained and that I still don't fully understand, while others are given pages of explanation.  There is no simple way to switch the sub in or out whilst listening in stereo.
      Do I sound like I am disappointed with the amp ???  Far from it.  I chose the Marantz because I thought it would give me the best sound for my money and it is in my opinion, money well spent.  And I haven't even got around to bi-amping it yet!!!

This is indeed disapointing for an expensive avr. I have all krix speaker setup at home for both music (cd, sacd+dvda) and home theatre but my old sony avr does not have the speaker crossover setting options either and I find that my subwoofer is very "underworked" with HT and especially music listening too. I was looking at the Marantz brand because they are very specialised with music... and I have the Marantz sa15s1 cd/sacd player as well.

Does anyone know if any of other marantz models have this crossover option (the sr9000s models?), is there a way around it?

Thanks,
Danny

[quijibo]

All marantz receivers have subwoofer crossover settings for all speakers, just not each speaker individually.
I, like 95% of users, would never need to set a different crossover frequency for individual speakers so I wouldn't let that deter you.

If you want a receiver that is brilliant for music and home theatre then marantz is one of your better options.

[howery53]

Docfeelg00d2000, on Aug 15 2007, 02:09 PM, said:

This is indeed disapointing for an expensive avr. I have all krix speaker setup at home for both music (cd, sacd+dvda) and home theatre but my old sony avr does not have the speaker crossover setting options either and I find that my subwoofer is very "underworked" with HT and especially music listening too. I was looking at the Marantz brand because they are very specialised with music... and I have the Marantz sa15s1 cd/sacd player as well.

Does anyone know if any of other marantz models have this crossover option (the sr9000s models?), is there a way around it?

Thanks,
Danny

Mate, do not let this small problem put you off the Marantz.  When playing SACDs, I use the 7.1 input which has it's own setup menu.  When playing normal CDs there is a pure direct option which bypasses all the filtering and makes a huge difference to the sound quality.  My original complaint still stands though.  I have large floor standing mains that I believe would cross over at about 60-80 Hz whilst my rears are small units that probably should cross over at 120-140 Hz.  I can only select one crossover frequency which is currently set at 100Hz.