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Marantz Pure Direct = Pure Analogue Path


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I was recently on a quest to determine if the Marantz 8802A pure direct mode provided a purely analogue pass through. (This question would apply to the 8805 as well.) Effectively I wanted to know if connecting an external DAC to it via pure direct mode would bypass any A to D or D to A conversion. This is important as if the signal was not maintained in its analogue form end-to-end then the benefits of an external DAC would be limited to some degree.

 

I sent a query direct to Marantz about this and received the following partially cryptic reply:

 

Dear Sir,
 
Thank you for your contact with Marantz.
At first, we have to say sorry for our lately reply due to our CRM system trouble.
In this period, we could not recognize your inquiry due to this trouble.
 
I’m writing about your inquiry for AV8802A.
 
The Pure Direct Mode is passed through the tone circuit/AD Converter/DA converter/DSP include Audyssey processing for Analog input.
In addition, stop the video and the display.
Probably, it is matched your target.
 
I hope to clear your question by this answer.
 
Best regards,
Marantz APAC Customer Support Team

 

I assume this confirms a pure analogue path, unless I am misinterpreting the response?

 

@Sime V2 I see they also mention the tone circuit separate to the AD/DA converter. This could imply that equalisation happens outside of AD/DA conversion, perhaps also in the analogue space.

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@Ed Sky thanks for that mate. As you can guess, I’ve been thinking a lot about this issue since investing heavily into a digital front end. I’ve been doing my own listening to the M Scaler either through pure direct, through the eq settings and also going through the multi-Chanel inputs also, which are known to be analog only. And Funnily enough, the M-Scaler gets shown off to its full capabilities through eq mode over all other known analog only inputs. So even if it’s was going though the 8805’s A/D-D/A after the fact, it’s still a considerable improvement with the M=Scaler, so it’s still worth it in the end. 

‘It’s one of those things that is subjective over objective, technically it might not be better, but it is, so…………………

 

And of course, non of my 2ch listening ever goes through Audyssey. 

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3 hours ago, Ed Sky said:

I was recently on a quest to determine if the Marantz 8802A pure direct mode provided a purely analogue pass through. (This question would apply to the 8805 as well.) Effectively I wanted to know if connecting an external DAC to it via pure direct mode would bypass any A to D or D to A conversion. This is important as if the signal was not maintained in its analogue form end-to-end then the benefits of an external DAC would be limited to some degree.

 

I sent a query direct to Marantz about this and received the following partially cryptic reply:

 

Dear Sir,
 
Thank you for your contact with Marantz.
At first, we have to say sorry for our lately reply due to our CRM system trouble.
In this period, we could not recognize your inquiry due to this trouble.
 
I’m writing about your inquiry for AV8802A.
 
The Pure Direct Mode is passed through the tone circuit/AD Converter/DA converter/DSP include Audyssey processing for Analog input.
In addition, stop the video and the display.
Probably, it is matched your target.
 
I hope to clear your question by this answer.
 
Best regards,
Marantz APAC Customer Support Team

 

I assume this confirms a pure analogue path, unless I am misinterpreting the response?

 

To me this is clear - "The Pure Direct Mode is passed through the tone circuit/AD Converter/DA converter/DSP "!

 

IE. the Pre Direct Mode path is certainly not a 'pure analogue path'!

 

So, yes, you are misinterpreting their response!  ?

 

Andy

 

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2 hours ago, Ed Sky said:

 The Pure Direct Mode is passed through the tone circuit/AD Converter/DA converter/DSP include Audyssey processing for Analog input.

In addition, stop the video and the display.
Probably, it is matched your target. 

@andyr  is spot on. It looks like its a bit lost in translation and order from the French ; Ed ;) As the tone circuits and audyssey are manipulated in the digital domain it should be a/d conversion ; audyssey and tone controls then the dac conversion back to analogue .. Audyssey is still processed at 48khz btw unlike others .

Like a lot of other pure direct modes they switch of the video circuits as well to theoretically stop the emi/rf from those circuits ; Ive never noticed a difference with this and settle for "direct'' on my yammie for the rare 2ch listening. 

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cwt is on money. one thing to keep in mind with ALL denon and marantz AV products. never mind receivers or av processors. they do have volume in analog domain. however where A-D happens is primarily for eq and processing to be applied. so a good way to see that it is all removed is look at the main display screen and while there a few modes that can be in play...it takes some efforts to remove all them including audyssey and such before you will see all vanish off the display to give evidence that no A-D D-A in play...

 

ps the manual pg 141 is pretty explicit re pure direct mode and it basically shuts down just about everything as opposed to direct or just stereo :)

 

 

This mode is for playback with higher sound quality than in Direct playback

mode.

This mode turns off the main unit display and analog video circuit. Doing

so suppresses noise sources that affect sound quality.

1 Press PURE to select “Pure Direct”.

The display goes dark, and Pure Direct playback begins.

The PURE DIRECT indicator lights.

0 In Direct and Pure Direct sound modes, the following items cannot be adjusted.

0 Dialog Enhancer (v p. 133)

0 Tone (v p. 135)

0 M-DAX (v p. 186)

0 MultEQ® XT32 (v p. 188)

0 Dynamic EQ (v p. 189)

0 Dynamic Volume (v p. 190)

0 Graphic EQ (v p. 192)

0 This can also be set by pressing PURE DIRECT on the main unit.

NOTE

0 Video signals are only output when HDMI signals are played in the Pure Direct

mode.

0 When the Pure Direct mode has been selected, the display turns off after about 5

seconds.

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24 minutes ago, andyr said:

 

To me this is clear - "The Pure Direct Mode is passed through the tone circuit/AD Converter/DA converter/DSP "!

 

IE. the Pre Direct Mode path is certainly not a 'pure analogue path'!

 

So, yes, you are misinterpreting their response!  ?

 

Andy

 

This is where the "cryptic" part of the reply comes in. Most certainly the person that replied from Marantz does not have English as their first language, that's why I put it forward at this forum for interpretation.

 

They do state: "The Pure Direct Mode is passed through the tone circuit/AD Converter/DA converter/DSP include Audyssey processing for Analog input."

 

The ambiguous part is what they mean by passed through. Do they mean bypassed or goes through? Based on the fact that they include Audyssey in this list I would have to think they mean bypassed, as Audyssey is most certainly bypassed in pure direct mode.

 

Also my original question to Marantz states:

 

I have a Marantz AV8802a. I am considering connecting a DAC for stereo listening to the Marantz via the XLR inputs. My question is, if I put the Marantz in pure direct mode will the analog input from the external DAC go through a purely analog path to the pre output to the amplifier?

I am just wanting to check that there is no analog to digital or digital to analog conversion that takes place to the signal in the Marantz in the above scenario.

 

Marantz' final response is: "Probably, it is matched your target."

 

Which seems to imply that pure direct mode will achieve this goal.

 

Again, the English is far from perfect so I can't be 100% sure, but based on the above it seem to infer Pure Direct bypasses any digital processing.

 

 

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14 minutes ago, Ed Sky said:

Again, the English is far from perfect so I can't be 100% sure, but based on the above it seem to infer Pure Direct bypasses any digital processing.

 

 

Then you should be very happy, Ed.  :)

 

Andy

 

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48 minutes ago, Sime V2 said:

I think it’s what Ed concluded, bypassed instead of passed through. 

 

Except that, reading the text from the English-challenged writer (not Ed!) ... I got the opposite conclusion. :lol:

 

Andy

 

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20 minutes ago, Sime V2 said:

@andyr but it is a fact that pure direct goes no where near the Audessey process. 

 

You may well be absolutely correct, Simon.  I have NFI about the component being discussed (I'm a stereo guy!  :) ) - I was merely commenting on what I understood from reading the reply Ed got back from Marantz.

 

Andy

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It’s a simple misuse of words. As Ed said, the mention of Audyssey in his/her explanation when clearly anyone who owns this pre knows full well that Audessey is turned off for the pure direct modes. But anyway…………

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By the way, even if an amp does do an AD then DA conversion to anything that goes into it, there's a lot of merit to being able to having complete control of the conversion chain and having perfectly matched filters on the way to digital and back that may not cause anywhere near as much harm to the sound compared to a normal DAC where every recording is done differently and the filter needs to be a generalised solution for all.

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I had the same question of my AVR 3313 and obtained the block diagram from Denon - I'd imagine you could get this yourself, and would settle the issue -

 

Response in part - " I have attached the block diagram in case you are interested which has the signal path for the analogue inputs to the output stage."

 

AVR3313 block diagram.pdf

Edited by Kaynin
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2 hours ago, Ittaku said:

By the way, even if an amp does do an AD then DA conversion to anything that goes into it, there's a lot of merit to being able to having complete control of the conversion chain and having perfectly matched filters on the way to digital and back that may not cause anywhere near as much harm to the sound compared to a normal DAC where every recording is done differently and the filter needs to be a generalised solution for all.

That's useful knowledge @Ittaku , I wasn't aware of this. I guess this is where the new Master Quality Audio (MQA) format proposes an advantage where compensation for A to D and D to A conversion are taken into account both in the source and playback chain?

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Just now, Ed Sky said:

That's useful knowledge @Ittaku , I wasn't aware of this. I guess this is where the new Master Quality Audio (MQA) format proposes an advantage where compensation for A to D and D to A conversion are taken into account both in the source and playback chain?

Yes that's exactly the same thinking, though MQA does a lot of other stuff as well.

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On 13/04/2019 at 10:00 AM, Ittaku said:

By the way, even if an amp does do an AD then DA conversion to anything that goes into it, there's a lot of merit to being able to having complete control of the conversion chain and having perfectly matched filters on the way to digital and back that may not cause anywhere near as much harm to the sound compared to a normal DAC where every recording is done differently and the filter needs to be a generalised solution for all.

But just because it’s not as bad as something else doesn’t mean it’s a good thing does it? Less conversion is surely the objective of the game.

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14 minutes ago, Hi-Fi Whipped said:

But just because it’s not as bad as something else doesn’t mean it’s a good thing does it? Less conversion is surely the objective of the game.

Right.

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2 hours ago, Irek said:

Pure direct analogue mode is not going to convert AVR to stereo integrated. 

Certainly no, though you must consider that we are talking about an AV preprocessor that does not contain amplification, so if we are to compare it, we should compare it to a stereo preamp. While I have not done a comparison myself, I understand that a mid to high-end dedicated stereo preamp is likely to outperform the Marantz AV preprocessor being discussed here.

 

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Ah yes, sorry, I should say Pure direct analogue mode is not going to convert AV pre - amplifier to stereo pre - amplifier. I would say $3k stereo preamp is going to sound better with music just because It was design for music only. This Marantz has so many features, it does almost everything, stereo preamp has volume control and does nothing else (usually). 

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