- Thread Starter
- #21
I hear you, hard to accept for people who went with Marantz for whatever reason and had to pay significantly more. I always knew about the possibility of paying more for less going with M instead of D, but was reconfirmed after I replaced my AVR-4308 CI with a Marantz AV7005, then the AV8801+MM8003 and an Anthem 2 channel amp, found no difference in sound quality whatsoever, though it was my subjective impression because there were no supporting measurements available at the time.
As for the recent models, say since 2016 through 2018, you shouldn't be surprised by the measurements because the only differences between the two in the audio signal chain, as mentioned many times, are the HDAMs (vs no HDAMs), and the use of different DAC reconstruction filters. Those are the two things that D+M could use as examples of D+M's claimed individual tuning.
Practically speaking such claims (the sound tuning) are 99% marketing hypes, because both teams must have the same goal, that is, let the amplifiers to just amplify the signal truthfully. The HDAM is an extra buffer stage at the end of the preamp. It is not for EQ or tone control. If done well, it should improve on measurements under certain conditions such as driving low impedance load (power amps) at high output, but from all the measurements done so far, I could not even find any evidence of Marantz's measuring better under any conditions ASR have tried. I guess if he use a test load of under 10 kOhm at above 2 or may be 3 Volts, the Marantz may come out on top, but that's not a sure thing, not until we can see some results.
Isn't X8500H more expensive than SR8015 ($4K vs $3.2K)?
It's less about money and more about Marantz being marketed as a "higher brand" than Denon (unless I miss something). It's like finding that VW measures better than Audi. Possible but surprising.