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3 Generations of Marantz flagship integrated amps measured

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GXAlan

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Weird that it is 70Hz not 60 Hz though!

I do see the 70 Hz spike on the UB9000 measurement though. I will need to test again with a different DAC.


Misread chart
 
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restorer-john

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As OP explained, he's in US, so that's 60Hz.
Which you can confirm by the 5th harmonic being exactly at 300Hz.
The scale is just all out of whack. It's 60Hz, but two graduations up from 50Hz and 13 vertical graticules between 20Hz and 200Hz?! There should be 10.




1663817281034.png
 

pkane

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Weird that it is 70Hz not 60 Hz though!

I do see the 70 Hz spike on the UB9000 measurement though. I will need to test again with a different DAC.
Looks like 60Hz to me. Just click the mouse in the plot a little distance away from the peak, then drag the mouse to the peak while holding down the shift key -- it'll add an arrow with the actual frequency and amplitude of the peak to the plot.
 
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GXAlan

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Got it. It does make sense that it is 60Hz hum and it is tricky since there are two divisions from 50Hz.

There is plenty of reading between the lines about how Marantz got Class D to sound good but there is a lot of commentary about environmental issues and the fact that the Sanken transistors in the PM-11s2 are not in production anymore. The PM-11s3 actually is supposed to measure worse than the PM-11s2 as well.
 

pma

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Awesome work. Though honestly surprising to see a regression with noise of all things. I thought at least it would be basically the same, but having to hunt down "cleaner" PS and hope that leads to better results is kinda depressing.
He always uses the 43Vrms míní jack input of E1DA. The system noise then dominates. At lower power, one needs to optimize input dividers and to use the XLR inputs of E1DA. E1DA needs external dividers and DIP switch setting at the bottom of the unit.
 

pkane

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@pkane
He's right about the X scale.
How should we read it ?
The major grid lines are as marked. Ignore anything in between them as these are auto-placed by the charting library. I just modified Multitone to remove these since I have no control over their placement or spacing.
 

pma

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I think it might be that the mains noise you're capturing is due to your cabling.
Everything from amp to load to ADC is unbalanced, isn't it ?
Could you shorten those cables, maybe ?
Did you measure the loopback DAC+ADC with the same cabling (without the load resistor) ?
Yes, cabling. And DAC to be isolated. Tuning the system is crucial. Balanced input topology is a must.
And also the scales of plots to be tuned, the plots are difficult to read. A lot of work :). It takes tens of hours:).

Not looking at some small system mistakes, one can see that the PM-11 is the best of the three, regarding spectrum cleanliness. NC modules are still the compromise, I came to this conclusion after months of testing them.
 
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Tks

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He always uses the 43Vrms míní jack input of E1DA. The system noise then dominates. At lower power, one needs to optimize input dividers and to use the XLR inputs of E1DA. E1DA needs external dividers and DIP switch setting at the bottom of the unit.
Do you think you can help me understand what it means to optimize input dividers exactly? I guess I understand why you would need to do it, what I'm lost on is how such a thing is done.
 
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GXAlan

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He always uses the 43Vrms míní jack input of E1DA. The system noise then dominates. At lower power, one needs to optimize input dividers and to use the XLR inputs of E1DA. E1DA needs external dividers and DIP switch setting at the bottom of the unit.

That makes a lot of sense. With the XLR inputs, do I just wire to positive / ground?
 
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GXAlan

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I think it might be that the mains noise you're capturing is due to your cabling.
Everything from amp to load to ADC is unbalanced, isn't it ?
Could you shorten those cables, maybe ?
Did you measure the loopback DAC+ADC with the same cabling (without the load resistor) ?
It could be. I did some tests with a Korg DS-DAC-10R which is not instrument grade and it was already able to generate plenty of differences with different interconnects.

For the amp to load to ADC, they are long cables for convenience, and random lengths that I had lying around. The line level loopback is using Canare cable.
 

TabCam

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How did you filter out the class-d ultrasonic switching noise?
 

eeMGee

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Nice job!
Strange that Marantz say on their website that PM-11S2 and PM-10 have THD at 0.01%, so -80dB while you get -130dB with PM-10
They certainly forgot two "0"
On the other hand, they say between 111 and 113dB SNR, and you get 93dB
It seems that Multitone Analyzer is calculating THD in a wrong way - when signal fundamental is -13 dBFS down and the highest harmonics are around -136 dBFS, then THD should be around -119 dB, not -132 dB (for PM-10)...
 

pkane

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It seems that Multitone Analyzer is calculating THD in a wrong way - when signal fundamental is -13 dBFS down and the highest harmonics are around -136 dBFS, then THD should be around -119 dB, not -132 dB (for PM-10)...
This is because THD was calculated in dBFS in this case. The setting to compute it in dBr is available, but wasn't selected.
 

Koeitje

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I had a PM-16, sold it because it was just too big.
 

eeMGee

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This is because THD was calculated in dBFS in this case. The setting to compute it in dBr is available, but wasn't selected.
THD definition:
"The THD is usually expressed in percent or in dB relative to the fundamental as distortion attenuation."

It does not matter if the scale is in dBFS or dBr - THD is "relative to fundamental". Otherwise, it is misleading, when fundamental is not exactly at 0 dBFS.
 
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pkane

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THD definition:
"The THD is usually expressed in percent or in dB relative to the fundamental as distortion attenuation."

It does not matter if the scale is in dBFS or dBr - THD is "relative tu fundamental". Othervise, it is misleading, when fundamental is not exactly at 0 dBFS.

The units are displayed on the plot, so there should be no confusion. I see the need for both, which is why I provided the setting.
 

eeMGee

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The units are displayed on the plot, so there should be no confusion. I see the need for both, which is why I provided the setting.
"...no confusion..."
So, how do I know what THD is correct in the test results (it is the same signal measured):
Clipboard01.jpg
 
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