As I mentioned, I have several Marantz, including preamp, power amps, and two prepros to be exact so I do like them and since you seem to be getting a good deal, congrats to you. I would like to make the following points that I think may be worth repeating though because I think you may in fact (actually would bet..) hear what you are expecting to hear for the obvious reasons.
1) Claims of those intentionally tuned "sound" is a silly thing. The "tuning team" would have to spend a lot of time doing trial and error, and assemble a large enough number of trained listeners, in order to come the conclusion that their efforts will result in the vast majority of potential buyer/users will prefer that kind of sound. You will be far better off with a device that is accurate, neutral, transparent, so that you can tune it yourself via various way of EQ.
2) Aside from 1), there is no way that Marantz is telling you the whole truth because:
a) For some of us who have seen and compare the schematics and parts list, the X4400H and SR7012 have the same preamp, DAC and processors and their power amps are identical. In direct mode, using analog inputs, there is nothing that Marantz could have done to tune theirs to have that "warm" sound as even the voltages at the test points were identical.
3) Measurements did show they have near identical THD+N, IMD, SNR, DR, FFT, and most importantly, FLAT frequency response 20-20,000 Hz. Denon's did a touch better in most cases, but both appeared to be well below the threshold of audibility.
The only obvious different is the high frequency (pass 10 kHz) drop off, but that's just 1 dB down at 15 kHz. Even on that point, my counter points are:
1) How many of us over the age of 30 - 40 can hear a 1 dB difference pass 15,000 Hz, really?
2) That drop off is due to Marantz choice of a dac slow roll-off (or delayed slow roll-off, we don't know which one for sure) so it absolutely have no effects on analog inputs + direct mode, when dac and dsp are not involved.
3) The dac filter choice would have little effect when playing material at sampling frequency higher than 44.1 kHz
4) Even if the effects of that slightly roll-off is audible to you, if you run Audyssey, the effects would have been nullified right? And remember if you have Audyssey on, sampling frequency would have been converted to 48 kHz before it even hits the DAC.
5) I happen to have the ex Marantz flagship AV8801, that did not have the roll-off DAC reconstruction filter, so FR is flat to 20,000 Hz, how come then people still claim the same "Marantz sound" at the time?
The HDAM claim is even more ridiculous, I can accept that perhaps their discrete buffer stage opamp has some advantages over a IC opamp, but we all know opamps are not used to "change" the sound!! And there are no HDAMs in the slimline, so do they have that "Marantz sound".
So, like Denon's AL32, DDSC, Marantz claims of custom tuning is just not credible!! And if they are, I would never buy their products again because I want my amp to be transparent, faithful to the input signal. I won't let anyone at Marantz to "tune" for me regardless.
Now having said that, I do wish you will like the "sound" and keep the unit. I wish I had bought one (as I mentioned, for backup) when I had the chance to grab one for under US$900 last year.
