16 Channel Home Theater Pre/pro Recommendation

[twokdesigns]

I don't know what a "so called spec engineer" is, just seems insulting.

The specs of most any AVR/AVP will not match stand-alone units. I don't choose by specs beyond meeting certain base levels of power, noise, and distortion; most of my HT choice is based upon features and price. Given my more recent experience I also tend to check out user forums for reliability and bug lists. Those are more subjective criteria and will not lead to any one answer -- it depends upon what the user needs and wants.

As for your choices, I think looking at codecs (formats) supported, channel count, and room correction (Audyssey vs. Dirac Live) may be considerations. Marantz has a longer track record, albeit at a higher price, but I personally favor Dirac Live so it would be a close call. The final decision must be your own, whatever "so called spec engineers" have to say.

yeah bad choice of wording and not really sure why I worded my comment that way but no intentional disrespect to anyone especially given I am asking for help. I have had zero luck with anything dirac that is is stabile. Had anthem avm70, arcam av40 and bith were plagued with issues that were persistant enough even with support from the manufacturers agreeing that newer firware (future) would surely solve most issues. Marantz av8805 had no issues other than my search for higher end. In that search with around 2 years of serious consideration if all brands I have not found anything to date that isnt more of a challenge to keeo good sound going over just a stabile platform. I did return the 8805 just because I thought I could find something with Dirac that would be available now under 6k and the arcam let me down with all sorts of bugs but I did enjoy the room correction. So thought I would focus now on stability of processing and a good amp with alot of headroom. Currently running the rotel rkb-8100 v3 and really dont have complaints but was looking just to have as much clean sound as I could find maybe a bit warmer (although htp-1 seems to be more rhan just warm in sound ) looking at Emotiva but also finding many issues in a higher percentage of those complaining for many years. woild love to stick with one brand but dont find Marantz having 7 channel amps that push enough power for allowing future upgrades from 5.2.2 (7.1) so I can run all speakers at the same time. Just not seeing alot of like in forums of the marantz av8805a and my experience is that it wasnt much better at processing than the sr7012 I had.

 

[wizardofoz]

Emotiva is a bit of a love hate thing...the sound quality is generally better than most at lower price points - I've had UMC-1, UMC-200, XMC-1 and now XMC-2 and other than the XMC-1 which they eventually got a reasonably stable firmware on its still not ideal with the XMC-2, with lockups, audio loss etc that require a full power off (turn off at the rear/wall) and on after a few mins wait then its ok. A busy network connection will also cause lock ups (I put mine on an isolated VLAN for Dirac use) but mostly dont connect it at all to the network which kills the option of IP based remote controls.

Im tempted to sell it and go back to 7.1 with the XMC-1 from my now Atmos 7.1.6 on the XMC-2 but I live in hope. I think my wife would be happy to get rid of everything Emotiva in the house but she might not like idea of funding a better replacement cost wise.