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Marantz SR6014 AVR Review

Vasr

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No problem. You have been great help. While you are at it, having the files at twice the length would be useful. They are too short at 5 seconds.

Ok second attempt. Problem was in exporting it with default signed 16 bit pcm encoding rather than with 32 bit float. I have verified the noise floor. The 1khz tone in L and R falls off to -120db or less on both sides full spectrum. The silent channels will have no detectable noise (i.e., instrumentation floor).

I have also included both Dolby Digital (ac3) encoding at 448kbps and DTS encoding at 1411kbps for 5.1 with 4 channels silent. It is a lossy encoding so there will be some artifacts but should be minimal for measuring relative results between the two speaker settings.

Have also doubled the size to roughly 11 sec total.
 

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zanlation

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This is sober reading as I own a SR6013 in my home cinema. I have two TPA3255EVM DIY amps driving LCR Paradigm 7s and CC 390 with pre out. There weren't many options for 11.1 in the AVR scene in my price range. I listen to music on a Topping 50s and Alpair 7 Pencils and I know it's better, just wish I could replicate it in the cinema.
 

SimpleTheater

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My point is - every power amp I have encountered in my servicing career spanning some 40 years, has had an input sensitivity of 0.7v to 1v - I don't remember ever encountering an amp requiring more than 1v for full power.
Well I’m not going to argue there are amps, especially vintage ones, that look for under 1V for full power, but they are rare indeed. Current dedicated amps from NAD, Outlaw, Monoprice, Macintosh, Yamaha, AudioControl (I could go on and on) all need from 1.1 to 3.1V for full power. Considering @amirm wrote “Best performance is achieved at just 0.7 volts. Hard to find a powerful external amplifier that is happy with just that much output.”, I’d have to say he is spot on. I literally cannot find a current manufacturer of a powerful amplifier rated at 1V or less, and even the amps you’ve mentioned don’t fit my definition of high power.
 
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After years of back and forth, back and forth between Audioholics, audiogon forums and AVSforums , we‘re still no closer to the question: are marantz analog inputs on their receivers digitised ? An end has to be put to this !


 
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audio_tony

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I literally cannot find a current manufacturer of a powerful amplifier rated at 1V or less

I'll just leave this here then. And I'd consider anything 100w and over as powerful.

1594467044190.png
 

SimpleTheater

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I'll just leave this here then.
That’s about as close to 1V as you can get. And isn’t this the point Amirm was making “Best performance is achieved at just 0.7 volts. Hard to find a powerful external amplifier that is happy with just that much output.”

You found one amp, still well above the .7 V Marantz best output level, from a company that is extremely small (only getting US distribution in 2016), an amp I can find no quality test measurements from 3rd party sources (honestly I don’t see it measuring well at all ,but I could be wrong), costs $2,000 for two channels, so like I said, I can’t find a high power amp I’d consider asking for under 1V, let alone .7V.

Sure, some boutique amps might exist, but that’s not the implication you originally wrote “Most power amps I've used over the years are rated for full power either at 0.775V or 1V” , unless you modify your position as “Most boutique power amps I've used over the years are rated for full power either at 0.775V or 1V”
 
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peng

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They do something, in my experience. Measuring an old NA7004 network player, proudly using HDAM,at levels <-1dBFS 2nd harmonic dominates unlike most solid state output stages I imagine. At 0dBFS (ie 2V rms) yes it struggles but most output stages do at full output from what I have measured.

It may be doing something, but if you look at the measurements by HTHF, the Total harmonic distortions was nearly -100 dB, and I only saw a -95 dB spike of 2nd harmonic when it was measured with an iphone connected to the ipod/usb port.

https://hometheaterhifi.com/reviews/audio-player/media-streamer/marantz-na7004-network-audio-player/

1594469039286.png


The high 2nd harmonic you got wouldn't be from the HDAMs, as Marantz spec for that player was very low, like 0.001%, that is -100 dB, very close to HTHF's measurements.
 

wineandmusic

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I read the DAC in the Marantz SR6014 fared pretty well, and I am just curious if it may have fared even better if certain circuits were turned off. I know the settings allow you to turn off settings that aren't in use....was that looked into during the testing?
 

peng

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Possibly so. There has been so much negativity and nit picking lately. There have been a lot of complaints against various brands and how they spec their receivers, such as 400W with 1 channel driven... as if that is meaningful in any way. You have a major brand coming out and telling us that if you look at a 2 channel rating, they are designing it to do 70% of that in 5 channels. In many of the tests they are actually hitting 70% in 7 channels. This is actually pretty good on the part of Denon/Marantz and a meaningful number and helps consumers. Maybe guarantee is too strong and has other implications and meaning to people, but to me it means when I shop I can get 70% of the 2 channel rating which is nice to know. And so far, none of the bench tests have shown otherwise which is good enough for me.

To the bigguy's point, it would have been better if instead of using the word "guarantee" that implies something can be done if it failed to deliver, they just say 105 WPC two channels driven, 70 WPC 5 channels driven. Not meant to be negative, but why include "guarantee" when they didn't use that with any of their other specs? Now it sounds like I am nitpicking.:)

By the way, you likely won't know what the 8500 could do 5 channel driven because Amir has never measured 5 channel driven, though if I remember right he might have done up to 4 channels. I think he is limited by the AP model he is using.

Denon, or Sound United, if you are watching, please send ASR a AVR-X8500H for testing/measurements. ASR members and the founder Amir has been so good enough to measure so far no fewer than 3 Denon AVRs and has two more, 3700 and 6700 in the queue. That's a lot of hard work, but it would be a shame if he can't finish measuring the whole Denon line up, including the flagship 52 lB AVR-X8500H.

I know one member may be planning on sending his, but it doesn't seem fair for someone to send such an expensive and heavy AVR in for testing. Denon/Marantz/Sound United is a big company, that can afford sending in a sample for bench testing once in a while, just so the consumers can see the measurements done by an independent lab.
 

peng

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The ultimate gain of the HDAM circuitry, even in the optimum form, appears significantly less than that of a good IC opamp. Less gain means less feedback is available and there will be more distortion.

This is similar to the case of many Parasound power amplifiers where the use of JFETS in the input stage, with their reduced transconductance (gain) vs. bi-polar transistors, reduces the overall feedback available. This reduced feedback results in increased distortion.

I understand your point on the feedback effect, but logically speaking I don't buy that because in this case it is an "extra" unity gain buffer stage. If you cut it right out, it would have become a Denon, so the feedback effects should not apply.

Denon does not have this stage, so there is no more or less distortions due to the stage that is not there in the first place.

To me, if you add a buffer amp stage right before the power amp input and that buffer (HDAM in this case) has many parts on board including 10 transistors, you can expect add distortions and noises, period. I was hoping for significant improvements in impedance buffering for such unity gain buffer, but after looking at all the graphs carefully, I could see hints of that, but not significant at all. Now, if Amir did that same 600 ohm load test, we might begin to see something. As it is now, if I limit myself to use the Denon with amps that offer upwards of 20 kOhm, I can relax without second guessing whether I should have stayed with the Marantz line.
 

Fillius

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By the way, you likely won't know what the 8500 could do 5 channel driven because Amir has never measured 5 channel driven, though if I remember right he might have done up to 4 channels. I think he is limited by the AP model he is using.
Could a dummy load be used on the channels not being measured?

If all channels are driven and affected evenly, only 2 of the channels would need to be measured.

The 2 channels measured could be Front L and Surround R. This would let us see if the power is distributed evenly between the front channels and the others.
 

peng

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The NAD 2200 is rated at 140w x2 and as we know from Amir's tests here is closer to 200w RMS - and yet out of all the amps I mentioned, is the most sensitive at 0.7v for full output.

Are we looking at the same NAD 2200? If it is, then it is rated 100 W, the 140 W is at clipping.
Yes sensitivity is quite high, 0.7 V, not 1 V that you listed in your post.

So of the 6 amp you listed, only the NAD and the Nikko have the sort of high sensitivity you originally alluded to. The other ones have apparent high sensitivity only because of their low power output. So you got only 1 win out of the 6 (not counting the NAD due to its 100 W only rating).

There are no doubt power amps like the NAD 2200 (32 dB gain) and Nikko Alpha 440 that has relatively high gain, but they are hard to find, not that common at all. The vast majority of power amps rate 200 W or more, will likely have gain less than 30 dB, so around 1.4 (using approx. 29 db gain, and rated output 200 W into 8 ohms). If you limit yourself to the likes of the NAD and Nikko amp, then yes you can be very happy with preamps that has their output limited to 1.2 V, no argument there.

1594471386189.png
 

peng

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After years of back and forth, back and forth between Audioholics, audiogon forums and AVSforums , we‘re still no closer to the question: are marantz analog inputs on their receivers digitised ? An end has to be put to this !



More than one of us including Amir have reported "yes" if you also select direct mode or pure direct mode. But if you don't want to believe any of us then what can we do?:) The only one question remain is, it appeared to Amir that when he used the CD input in his measurements, the result indicated that the signal was not digitized and direct, pure direct, stereo made no difference.

I suspect it may be because he set the speakers to large and subwoofer to none and no dsp/Audyssey was used in his measurements. So I suggested he tried and find out if Denon/Marantz has some smart in the logic such that it wouldn't digitize regardless of whether direct/pure direct is selected, as long as subwoofers and/or no DSP/Audyssey are in use. He said he could do it in his next review.

Until then, we know analog inputs, direct/pure direct will ensure no digitization. For "stereo", it may be conditional, and hopeful Amir can find out soon.
 
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Thank you

so For people using say a Blu ray player’s 7.1 analog outs into a marantz 7.1 analog in ....

if they select direct or pure direct it’s all analog ?

( I never use marantz for 2 channel just Blu ray movies)
 

audio_tony

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Are we looking at the same NAD 2200? If it is, then it is rated 100 W, the 140 W is at clipping.
Yes sensitivity is quite high, 0.7 V, not 1 V that you listed in your post.

I corrected the 1v / 0.775v error in a later post. (I was unable to edit my original post for whatever reason)

I refer you to Amir's own measurements of the 2200 (and they all measure well over the specified power - this is not unique)

229W per channel BOTH channels driven.

1594479890831.png
 

peng

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Thank you

so For people using say a Blu ray player’s 7.1 analog outs into a marantz 7.1 analog in ....

if they select direct or pure direct it’s all analog ?

( I never use marantz for 2 channel just Blu ray movies)

Yes, actually if you use 7.1 ch analog inputs, there is no option for the signal to get digitized. I have not used 7.1 ch analog input for ages so I don't remember much about it but I don't think you can even select any mode. If you press pure direct it would turn the display off, that's about it. With that input, your source player is in control.
 

peng

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I corrected the 1v / 0.775v error in a later post. (I was unable to edit my original post for whatever reason)

I refer you to Amir's own measurements of the 2200 (and they all measure well over the specified power - this is not unique)

229W per channel BOTH channels driven.

View attachment 72851

Amir's output measurements often show the dut (even av receivers) could output more than specified. Of all the vintage power amps Amir has measured so far, the NAD 2200 did very well indeed, but now you are onto a different topic.:)
 

peng

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I corrected the 1v / 0.775v error in a later post. (I was unable to edit my original post for whatever reason)

I refer you to Amir's own measurements of the 2200 (and they all measure well over the specified power - this is not unique)

229W per channel BOTH channels driven.

As I said, that amps performed really well especially consider the fact that it is vintage!

Keep in mind, the fact that it could output 229 W into 8 ohms, if you want to take advantage of that, you are going to need more than 0.7 V but still, 1.1 V would do it, so something like the Marantz SR6014 would be a good match even without disconnected the internal amps.
 

frangle

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More than one of us including Amir have reported "yes" if you also select direct mode or pure direct mode. But if you don't want to believe any of us then what can we do?:) The only one question remain is, it appeared to Amir that when he used the CD input in his measurements, the result indicated that the signal was not digitized and direct, pure direct, stereo made no difference.

I suspect it may be because he set the speakers to large and subwoofer to none and no dsp/Audyssey was used in his measurements. So I suggested he tried and find out if Denon/Marantz has some smart in the logic such that it wouldn't digitize regardless of whether direct/pure direct is selected, as long as subwoofers and/or no DSP/Audyssey are in use. He said he could do it in his next review.

Until then, we know analog inputs, direct/pure direct will ensure no digitization. For "stereo", it may be conditional, and hopeful Amir can find out soon.
Yes, and to confirm, I've checked again the SR7009 schematic. The analog block takes all the analog inputs (including the 7.1 channel), and minimally puts it through the volume control (in the analog domain), optionally tone control, then the infamous HDAM, before feeding to the pre-outs and power amp modules (29dB gain). There is of course the digital path as well if you want to take advantage of any further functionality.
 
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