Marantz AV Owners Thread

[yamapro]

Did you really need to quote the whole OP?

By the way DG - any word on the speakers you auditioned each amp with?

[dantan]

Thanks a lot, DG, for the informative read.

I am now, too, extremely interested in this A/V Receiver. It costs a lot more than I was hoping to pay for a pre/pro, as I am awaiting my Elektra. It is my own fault I have not received mine! I would have had mine before Christmas, if I hadn't postponed it, due to financial constraints.

I had mentally decided upon an Onkyo 705, but after reading this, and I also seem to remember that Krix does recommend Marantz to complement its loudspeakers, so I shall have to certainly keep this Marantz in mind, when the time does indeed arrive!

Like yamapro, I am keenly interested to hear as to which loudspeakers were powered, when you auditioned this Marantz.

Dan.

[Mining Man]

~

By the way DG - any word on the speakers you auditioned each amp with?

~

Like yamapro, I am keenly interested to hear as to which loudspeakers were powered, when you auditioned this Marantz.

Being that it was Harvey Norman, would reduce it to only a few contenders. What are they running these days? I remember seeing Krix, DB Dynamics (or something like that) and Klipsch. Can't remember much else. I recall someone saying HN were stocking Mission now???

(HN over here is a little different, and sell B&W (600 series only), Cerwin Vega, Athena, Klipsch (not the reference series though) and can't remember the last couple.)

[Cody]

thanks for the comments guys, much appreciated.

A very comprehensive review D.G. Extremely helpful for prospective buyers especially given there are currently no online pro reviews that I'm aware of.

Just some minor queries. How bright is the 7002's front panel display in a dark room? Your pictures look like they were taken in daylight/lights on, no doubt to get good shots. I note above you have the option of completely turning it off but can you also dim it if desired?

Also how responsive/smooth do you find the volume control via remote control and how accommodating is the 7002 IR sensor to an acute angle signal from the remote, or do you need to be pretty straight on for it to work properly?

Hi Felix, its not particularly bright at all, but bright enough to be read in the day (unfortunately I have a skylight right above it) and not be distracting in the dark. I've taken to using the auto-off function, that switches it on for a few seconds when you press a button, but then turns it off. theres no dimmer button or any mention of one in the manual im afraid.

volume control is very smooth and the dial is solid. if anything, the input dial could be a bit firmer with the "notches" when you turn it. it can be hard to tell when you have turned it far enough for a "click". I've noticed this will past Marantz's as well. No big deal for me though as i use the remote all the time.

IR sensor is fine, i tried it at some extreme angles, including with the rack pulled out and facing the wall, and it worked fine. ive had a few troubles with the harmony when switching inputs, sometimes it doesnt change on the AVR first time. I think i can fix this though by tweaking the settings on the remote (putting a gap in). as i recall i had the same problem early on with my Pioneer.

That is awesome news

Thanks for taking the time out to review and Q&A it. As Felix said it's nice to have such a comprehensive review, especially in absence of pro reviews (although i always prefer real world reviews anyway)

I really think i will be sticking with Marantz now... yay

no problem!

Did you really mean to repeat this three times?

ie, Audio quality was what really mattered most!!

hehe, subtle I know....

DG, what an excellent read, I thoroughly enjoyed it and could sense your emotions whilst reading. I’m glad my system was a bit of a help in your evolving journey.

cheers Spearmint and yes it was a huge help as it opened me up to a whole next level of audio performance and also got me thinking beyond just the components themselves and to the impact a well planned/laid out room with sound treatments can have. your also of course welcome by any time for a listen.

[Cody]

Did you really need to quote the whole OP?

By the way DG - any word on the speakers you auditioned each amp with?

hi yamapro, unfortunately i didnt note the details, but from memory they were Klipsch floorstanders.

[50mxe20]

great read DG

Cheers

I agree and I remember Caniffe asking that we not do it.

[cwt]

Great read D.G. Must ask [after noticing the hi def movies used so far ] does it sound superior to the pio with the lossless tracks ? Specifically dolby true hd as I see you can now decode dts hdma ;where you couldnt previously [or at least core 1.5mbps].

[Cody]

Great read D.G. Must ask [after noticing the hi def movies used so far ] does it sound superior to the pio with the lossless tracks ? Specifically dolby true hd as I see you can now decode dts hdma ;where you couldnt previously [or at least core 1.5mbps].

Hi cwt, I havent actually watched a movie with TrueHD as yet, and if recall correctly isnt there a bug with the XA2/XE1 in relating to bitstreaming TrueHD? I believe there is an LFE issue which affects all AVR's. I'll find out probably during the week when I watch something with a TrueHD track.

i am keen to do a comparison between DTS core and HD-MA, as I want to get a full sense for just how much difference there is. I've watched some Blu-Ray discs with the DTS core only and they sounded fantastic.

[50mxe20]

Hi cwt, I havent actually watched a movie with TrueHD as yet, and if recall correctly isnt there a bug with the XA2/XE1 in relating to bitstreaming TrueHD? I believe there is an LFE issue which affects all AVR's. I'll find out probably during the week when I watch something with a TrueHD track.

i am keen to do a comparison between DTS core and HD-MA, as I want to get a full sense for just how much difference there is. I've watched some Blu-Ray discs with the DTS core only and they sounded fantastic.

My B&W Night has Dolby TrueHD. When I select it on the XE-1 I get much better sound than the normal 5.1.

I'm bitstreaming from the XE-1 to the Denon 3805 via 5.1 analogue.

At least doing that, there does not seem to be a problem.

[betty boop]

Hi cwt, I havent actually watched a movie with TrueHD as yet, and if recall correctly isnt there a bug with the XA2/XE1 in relating to bitstreaming TrueHD? I believe there is an LFE issue which affects all AVR's. I'll find out probably during the week when I watch something with a TrueHD track.

i am keen to do a comparison between DTS core and HD-MA, as I want to get a full sense for just how much difference there is. I've watched some Blu-Ray discs with the DTS core only and they sounded fantastic.

hi DG, no troubles bitstreaming truehd from the XE1 to my 4308 most defintely works and no bass/LFE issues to report.

[betty boop]

Hi cwt, I havent actually watched a movie with TrueHD as yet, and if recall correctly isnt there a bug with the XA2/XE1 in relating to bitstreaming TrueHD? I believe there is an LFE issue which affects all AVR's. I'll find out probably during the week when I watch something with a TrueHD track.

~

I jsut checked for you DG, put iwo jima into the xe1. With bitstreaming truehd across to the 4308, Defitenly no troubles with LFE. When the plane flys in with commander onto the island the rumble of the motors can defintely be felt as goes by. When he's walking along the beach you have the deep bass of the drum, plus ofcourse about 47min in when the island starts getting pounded and theyre in the caves in the mountain..the bass still shakes the house !

[Kazz]

I jsut checked for you DG, put iwo jima into the xe1. With bitstreaming truehd across to the 4308, Defitenly no troubles with LFE. When the plane flys in with commander onto the island the rumble of the motors can defintely be felt as goes by. When he's walking along the beach you have the deep bass of the drum, plus ofcourse about 47min in when the island starts getting pounded and theyre in the caves in the mountain..the bass still shakes the house !

Great review D.G. if I hadn't recently bought the Yammy 3800 this would have had serious consideration.

Further to Al's post I have the XE1 as well and have had no LFE probs bitstreaming to the 3800 all of the 5 Harry Potters are true hd and they have been fine.

Cheers,

Karen

[cwt]

i am keen to do a comparison between DTS core and HD-MA, as I want to get a full sense for just how much difference there is. I've watched some Blu-Ray discs with the DTS core only and they sounded fantastic.

Thats a interesting comparison D.G. look forward to your thoughts. Ive read that the core is perceptually close to the limits of human hearing . I found an interesting list of various codecs-

'So, when you are talking about soundtracks on an HD DVD, the following are all possibilities:

16bit/48khz lossy (common, used by Warner often with DD+ at 640kbps bitrate)

16bit/48khz lossless (common, used by Warner often with TrueHD at 1.5mbps bitrate)

20bit/48khz lossy (common, used by Paramount with DTS-HD at 1.5mbps bitrate)

24bit/48khz lossy (common, used by Universal often with DD+ at 1.5mbps bitrate)

24bit/48khz lossless (less common, used by Universal with TrueHD at 2.8mbps bitrate)

24bit/96khz lossy (rare, used only by RnB Films on the HD DVD Chronos'

You know I keep having to remind myself that the bitrate is just a measure of the codecs compression

[betty boop]

Thats a interesting comparison D.G. look forward to your thoughts. Ive read that the core is perceptually close to the limits of human hearing . I found an interesting list of various codecs-

'So, when you are talking about soundtracks on an HD DVD, the following are all possibilities:

16bit/48khz lossy (common, used by Warner often with DD+ at 640kbps bitrate)

16bit/48khz lossless (common, used by Warner often with TrueHD at 1.5mbps bitrate)

20bit/48khz lossy (common, used by Paramount with DTS-HD at 1.5mbps bitrate)

24bit/48khz lossy (common, used by Universal often with DD+ at 1.5mbps bitrate)

24bit/48khz lossless (less common, used by Universal with TrueHD at 2.8mbps bitrate)

24bit/96khz lossy (rare, used only by RnB Films on the HD DVD Chronos'

You know I keep having to remind myself that the bitrate is just a measure of the codecs compression

if looking for bitrate and bit depth capabilities of the formats this link tass posted is very good reading

http://www.dtvforum.info/index.php?showtopic=59717

and ofcourse if looking for actuall disc specs audio wise we have some good info here in the sticky for both disc formats.

http://www.dtvforum.info/index.php?showtopic=55826

[Cody]

thanks Lyle, Al and Kazz. the issue i mentioned there is one i noticed when reading through the Marantz 7002/8002 thread on AVS, with the first post on it being THIS one. there are a few others further down that back this up and point to a thread on the issue. i havent looked into it any further but will try and find that XA2 thread to understand whats happening. good to hear though your not reporting the issue.

Thats a interesting comparison D.G. look forward to your thoughts. Ive read that the core is perceptually close to the limits of human hearing . I found an interesting list of various codecs-

'So, when you are talking about soundtracks on an HD DVD, the following are all possibilities:

16bit/48khz lossy (common, used by Warner often with DD+ at 640kbps bitrate)

16bit/48khz lossless (common, used by Warner often with TrueHD at 1.5mbps bitrate)

20bit/48khz lossy (common, used by Paramount with DTS-HD at 1.5mbps bitrate)

24bit/48khz lossy (common, used by Universal often with DD+ at 1.5mbps bitrate)

24bit/48khz lossless (less common, used by Universal with TrueHD at 2.8mbps bitrate)

24bit/96khz lossy (rare, used only by RnB Films on the HD DVD Chronos'

You know I keep having to remind myself that the bitrate is just a measure of the codecs compression

interesting that the second and third last two in the list are so close (the numbers anyway), yet of course one is lossless and the other lossy. of course a lot of people are upgrading their equipment so as to be able to go from core to full lossless, so i think its important to consider just how much difference can you hear and also how good does the rest of the links in the audio chain need to be to reproduce the difference? then theres the question of how much difference the pre-stage makes, and is the end result better using core only via a good pre-pro, or full lossless with an AVR?

[Cody]

just had to make my first edit, remembered something important i forgot to add in:

**Note: all acoustic EQ modes (incl. Audyssey) are disabled when you bitstream Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus or DTS-HD.

i read somewhere (probably AVS) that this is probably due to the amount of processing power required to do both.

[glennb]

just had to make my first edit, remembered something important i forgot to add in:

i read somewhere (probably AVS) that this is probably due to the amount of processing power required to do both.

Does that mean that the settings aquired using the Audyssey are lost when doing this?

[Kazz]

thanks Lyle, Al and Kazz. the issue i mentioned there is one i noticed when reading through the Marantz 7002/8002 thread on AVS, with the first post on it being THIS one. there are a few others further down that back this up and point to a thread on the issue. i havent looked into it any further but will try and find that XA2 thread to understand whats happening. good to hear though your not reporting the issue.

I wonder if perhaps (and I'm probably way off base here) our firmware is different and therefore we don't have the same problem?

[betty boop]

I wonder if perhaps (and I'm probably way off base here) our firmware is different and therefore we don't have the same problem?

if you read the post you pointed to DG. it infact relates to LFE issues with PCM from the XE1, ie youd be decoding in the player passing pcm to the avr

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread....43#post12709243

LFE problem with PCM'ed TrueHD

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have an XA2 hooked up to the sr7002 and I have noticed a difference in the LFE output between PCM and TrueHD tracks of the same movie. So I did some calibration of my system using an SPL meter and pink noise from DVE using both PCM and bitstream (DDA) playback. As mentioned around the forums, the PCM playback is 4dB lower in each standard channel when compared to the bitstreamed track. However the LFE channel is 10dB lower than the bitstreamed track when using PCM playback. Interestingly, if I do the same test comparing PCM to bitstream using a regular Dolby Digital track from the standard definition side of the DVE disc, the only difference that I see between the LFE signal is the 4dB difference expected from PCM playback. So does anybody know why the reciever is not applying the +10dB boost to the LFE signal of a TrueHD PCM track but is applying the boost to a bitstreamed TrueHD track, when the reciever clearly provides the boost to both formats when playing a regular dolby digital track?

reading this post I wonder if people are maybe jsut getting confused re the XA2 and issues with using analog multichannel (though there are work arounds for that.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread....07#post12712107

and this person is deifnitely saying theyre were having issues with the XA2 and pcm ie theyd be decoding in the player and passing to the avr as pcm

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread....78#post12716078

as per the posts above maybe there are LFE issues with decoding truehd in the player and passing as PCM to the AVR as there have been issues reported via using multichannel analogs where the player is doing the decoding. Might explain why neither of us bitstreaming truehd across to the avr to decode is reporting the same issue. I've mentioned before that although I'd applied the workarounds with my previous non hdmi avr, having moved to a bitstreaming and a hdmi avr have defintely found some good benfit in the bass side with a cleaner more detailed and defined sound.

To confirm no such issue that I've noticed with the XE1 and bitstreaming to my 4308, am running latest firmware on both. Few discs come to mind of late with truehd tracks that I've watched, hp order of pheonix, roy orbison black and white and yesterday iwo jima that I tested. Defintely no issue with bass/LFE and bitstreaming truedhd from xe1 to the 4308.

[Cody]

aha, got it round the wrong way, indeed its the PCM signal thats mentioned as down in LFE.

good news that its fine with bitstream, dont think i could handle dealing with another LFE issue!!!

Does that mean that the settings aquired using the Audyssey are lost when doing this?

the EQ processing, yes. its mentioned on p55 of the manual. as i read it, it does relate to EQ only, so other settings/levels etc would remain in place. i'd need the DVE HD-DVD to check it properly, just going off the manual at this point.

[yamapro]

I'm sooo glad you are here to sort out the issues and workarounds for me before i take the plunge...

Some-one give DG a BETA TESTER CAP! (And wear it with pride sir )

Edited January 15, 2008 by yamapro

[ritzav]

Whew ! Finally, someone has tested this unit and taken out a great deal of their time to describe it, Hats off to effort put in !

3 months ago I had penciled in to buy the 6001 but during the christmas break I saw the prices of 7001 falling down to the price of 6001. And now the 7002 comes out .... its all very confusing for a newbee like me, who mainly relies on experts on this forum for comments. Everything I have read in the review here seems to suggest that the 7002 is worth the extra $$$ when compared to the 7001.

I will order the 7002 today, I am excited

Thanks for the detailed review again. I have book marked it so i can use it for reference when mine gets delivered.

[petetherock]

Good 7002 review:

http://www.dtvforum.info/index.php?showtopic=60290&st=0

[greengumby]

Thanks DG,

I have been having out for a review of the 7002. Looks like its #1 on my list

[KOAZ]

Introduction:

Note: THERE IS NO SCALER IN THIS RECEIVER, that is to say, it cannot up-scale anything to a higher resolution. Basically what comes in goes out. What it can do is the following:

• De-interlace a 576i or 480i signal. (needed as not all displays can accept 576i/480i)

• Up-convert composite/S-Video to Component or HDMI, or Component to HDMI.

D.G.

Sorry to ask, but are you sure it De-interlaces both 576i or 480i signals.

I could not find any referance and only speaks about up-converts 480i , 480p , 720p and 1080i on page 62 of manual.

KOAZ