It is really inexcusable, given that so many forum members have been saying AVRs are so compromised, having too many things jammed in one box, yet the seemingly less jammed AVPs, AVCs, rarely scored better even in noise, let alone distortions. Also, given that most of them clearly were AVR based in terms of the all important ICs including the processors, preamp vol control, DACs and various OPAs, one can't even believe, if we think logically, claims like, ..they may have higher distortions, but what about things you can't measure, but things that affect sound quality... The only reason I can think of why they didn't measure better, is, they know as long as the price is right (hint: higher
than AVRs), and they emphasize/claim the theoretical advantage being "separates" in their advertisements and publications (I don't buy that either, not that separated all), make them look better, include balanced or pseudo balanced feature, who cared, or even know about measurements and what they mean. They also always get help from professional magazines and online reviewers who have no problem backing up the claims with their typical subjective/flowery praise on the "sound quality" thing, even if their own measurements show they measured worse than the highly compromised AVRs.
For example, if Marantz is really serious about AVP always "sound better" than AVRs, it should be very easily for them to make the AV7705's SINAD, SNR/DR, at least 3 dB better than their own SR6014, SR7015 right? Well, at least they managed that in the $4999 AV8805, and I do give them credit for that.. So again, its not like they couldn't, but they wouldn't..