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Any fool with a soldering iron could get the audio out of the box if they desired.
Or with a Raspberry Pi with a HAT? (I would be such a fool.)
Any fool with a soldering iron could get the audio out of the box if they desired.
Licensing doesn't seem the issue for no-sense high price points. It's the "exclusiveness" and market segmentation. At least for the info we know (not too much really).
And we can't forget these machines aren't as "popular" as compact sound systems, sound bars, TV sets, etc...
Sony, Onkyo, Yamaha,... and Denon/Marantz are able to build not-so-expensive entry level devices with Atmos/DTS/...etc...
Which begs the question, why don't they? If there was demand one would have thought somebody would feed it.Of course the dirty secret is that it would not be at all difficult to construct an add in board that created either S/PDIF outputs, or just installed much higher quality DACs.
Bravo. Did you need to write code yourself?Or with a Raspberry Pi with a HAT? (I would be such a fool.)
Bravo. Did you need to write code yourself?
Brilliant. I love my children's creativity too.Actually my 16-year-old son wrote the code (or the little extra that was needed). Embarrassing, a little, but I get proud dad bennies.
Purely for educational purposes, BTW. And to do something nice for his dad.
Which begs the question, why don't they? If there was demand one would have thought somebody would feed it.
I have been told by someone who I think knows that the OEM DAC chips in these might cost $2 or $5 or something like that in bulk. Still I don’t see how they screwed up the FR like that, that would be outside tolerances for even an ultra-cheap DAC chip, AFAIK.
As I have said other times, modern AVR have taken a downturn in sound quality.
Why Marantz made the choices they did isn't clear.
The cause of distortion deterioration is quantization aliasing noise and the characteristics of the digital filter are intended and in accordance with the specifications of the DAC. (AK4490).
It does not apply to the point that there is a bug in the filter characteristics of the DAC. This characteristic was selected by the filter setting according to Marantz's sound policy. Marantz has selected slow roll-off filters for DAC output for many years. If it attenuates before 22.05 kHz, then the audio band will not be flat and the sound quality will be sacrificed.
We consider that the reviewer's perception and expectations for the slow roll-off filter are different from what we intended. The AV8805 is a product that has sufficiently considered the sound quality of Marantz.
Here's what interesting about our 'beheaded panther' product. 10 Amazon reviewers give it 4.8 of 5 stars. Crutchfield has two 5 star reviews. Best Buy reviewers give it seven 5 star reviews notwithstanding that it's listed as a home theater receiver. Wonder if any of the purchasers get home and wonder where to connect the speakers?
Bottom line is that people seem to be happy with the product which I'll admit is not surprising after you've spent over 2 grand on a product, you want to be happy! Now for that same list price $2,199.00, you could get 9 channels of amplification expandable to 11 with a 2 channel power amp. FWIW the AV receiver gets similar 5 star reviews.
AV7705 11.2CH 4K Ultra HD AV Surround Pre-Amplifier with IMAX Enhanced, Dolby Atmos, Auro-3D, HEOS, AirPlay 2 and Alexa Voice Compatibility
SR7013 9.2 Channel 4K Ultra HD AV Receiver with IMAX Enhanced, Dolby Atmos, Auro-3D, HEOS, AirPlay 2 and Alexa Voice Compatibility
See they even have the same features that Marantz thinks will push sales of the product. Note that none of these are about low distortion or excellent digital performance.
As already mentioned, the engineering for the preamp appears to primarily about removing the power amp section and adding balanced outputs. Indeed, the back panels appear to be identical with the exception of the location of the antennae for the tuner. And yet, I suspect they probably have it in their line for prestige rather than as a profitable product.
This unit seems to be broken - by design. I'm currently preparing a review of the Marantz AV7701 (prepreprepredecessor of the 7705) and that one has no problems to keep THD in spec (0.008% / -82 dB) up to the maximum level of 12V rms @ XLR out and 0 dBFS. Actually THD level is always way below spec, usually around 0.002% / -92 dB or better. I don't want to cludder this review with graphs from another unit so I hide them behind a spoiler.
Somehow Marantz has been able to deteriorate the output capability of the XLR outputs between the AV7701 and 7705. May rise the second hand price of my AV7701.Input: Coax SPDIF 1 kHz 192 kHz / 24 bit
Output: XLR, with 12 Vrms at Volume = 91.5 and 0 dBFS input
1. THD+N measured versus volume with 0 dBFS input
As one can see THD gets better with volume and not worse.
View attachment 49298
2.THD+N measured versus dBFS at Volume 91
One can see that the sweet spot of the DAC is -4 to -5 dBFS. And we see a THD hump between -25 dBFS and -5 dBFS.
View attachment 49299
I would prefer a software solution regarding AV processing. You'd just need a PC and a multichannel DAC and be done for a long time:
I know this will not happen in the near futute, but just let me dream a little bit, OK?
- need more channels: buy more DACs
- need support of newer decoders: update the processing software
- somehow the CPU gets too slow with modern decoders: get a new motherboard