Is Marantz dead?

[peng]

Is this a copy-paste from a whathifi-review?

It is obvious that nothing anyone can do to convince those who believe there's something magic in "sound quality, or signature" that somehow those so called designers, soundmasters could create such magic without it being showing up in measurable frequency response, distortions (of different kinds), noise, slew rate etc. They just believe it, that they really heard it, often claimed obvious, night and day blablabla.. There's no logic to it, nor any rational other than what they said, as in that long post, lol..

 

[Doodski]

When I was 17 I auditioned a Marantz CD52mkiiSE and sat in that same room was a Technics, Denon all at the same price point. The latter two looked more impressive and substantial to my impressionable young eyes but the sound was glassy and brittle. Irritating. Whatever Marantz did they made the sound more enjoyable even if it didn’t measure as well or have the flash aesthetics of Technics and Denon. I had the same experience when comparing SACD to PCM layer of a hybrid CD. The decay was longer and more detailed of the harpsichord and change falling change of Money on DSOM. The specs of these machines is ‘good enough’ but something is done to voice them differently to make one more enjoyable, liveable and convincing over the others.

I finallly have coffee in hand this early in the morning and am now able to address these claims... LoL. I heard all those Sony, Denon, Technics, Marantz, Pioneer, Harman Kardon and other CD players up to about $2400 models in the later 80s and early 90s while they where connected to a switchbox and I never heard any difference. I also tried with headphones and found they where virtually the same. There sure where mechanical differences and finishing differences but sound quality is a big, "No."

 

[peng]

I finallly have coffee in hand this early in the morning and am now able to address these claims... LoL. I heard all those Sony, Denon, Technics, Marantz, Pioneer, Harman Kardon and other CD players up to about $2400 models in the later 80s and early 90s while they where connected to a switchbox and I never heard any difference. I also tried with headphones and found they where virtually the same. There sure where mechanical differences and finishing differences but sound quality is a big, "No."

It seems to me there are more subjective measurements (so called by ears) that claimed Marantz AVRs sound better in terms of being warm, musical, better for music etc.) on the internet but it could have been due to Marantz, (and Denon too, since they merged with SU, continued with Masimo) marketing info that planted seeds from day 1 and keep watering them nicely..).

The other day, while browsing for deals on a AVR-X3800H, I came across one Marantz C 40 customer review that sounds a little more reasonable, i.e. still subjective but more reserved, apparently more neutral without exaggeration, even believable!

There are only 10 reviews, and only one claimed to have done blind tests in PD mode (obviously we don't know if he followed some sort of acceptable protocol), still at least he tried:

Customer Review​

I. K.
5.0 out of 5 stars Marantz sound is not an urban legend
Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2024
Color: BlackVerified Purchase
I was trying to decide between two seemingly identical products, the Denon X4800H and the Marantz Cinema 40. Having had the chance to audition both of them for a full afternoon (blind tests in pure direct mode), I realized that the difference is real, the sound of the Marantz comes more 'analog', the voices are more real, less processed. The differences of course are marginal, as expected in any comparison of this price range, and are only noticeable in music, in movies both are superb. But again, when you pay this kind of money, you do care about every tiny detail. I'm absolutely in love with this thing, can't wait to come back home every day to listen to more music.
4 people found this helpful

Then I saw that there were almost 7X more reviews on the "equivalent" Denon AVR-X4800H:

joe - PA, now OH
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent A/V receiver for the money; has all the preouts you need as well
Reviewed in the United States on October 23, 2023
Style: AVR-X4800HVerified Purchase
Ok so this is my 3rd Denon a/v receiver. I now own, x3600, x 3800h, x4800h. All 3 have all the the preouts you need to connect them to an amp. Which is why I bought those models. Anyway, This X4800H I made sure was the shorter model so it had room to "breathe" between the top and the next shelf. It's wired to a Monolith 7x. I have plenty of wattage/headroom. Now it is hooked to excellent speakers as well, so that makes the sound quality great!! Although I would bet the sound quality is very good with average speakers. All the Denon receivers sound very good to me, with all speakers. It is heavy, but that is a good sign of a good build/ quality. Everything works as expected and very good too!. I had a Marantz 7015, but replaced it with this x4800h and am not sorry at all. I think the X4800h sound better, a little clearer. You can hear more instruments through this X4800 as well, IMO. I thought the price was inexpensive since I had been watching the prices for over 2 years. Do yourself a favor and buy the one you want first. Other wise I would not have one of the other ones. The 3700 is in the bedroom. They changed the menus some, but I was able to figure it out anyway. However, it DOES have Dirac Live, but I only set it up with Audessy.
12 people found this helpful

Regardless, if I were in Europe, like the UK or France, I would go for the Cinema 50 because for 200-250 Euro more I prefer the look, actually like the Port hole too, instead of the AVR-X3800H that is more traditional looking.

 

[EWL5]

I guess using this logic means that my Primare Amp at only 120W is a substantial downgrade in performance from the built-in amps on the X4800H, SR7012 and the Cinema 30?....like power rating somehow translates to audio quality??

That's not fair and not what I was implying. Quite a bit of the most important parts are shared b/w a Cinema 30 and 6800, Cinema 40 and 4800, and Cinema 50 and 3800. My comment had to do w/paying the Marantz premium over the Denon equivalent for basically the same performance. If you didn't know this you know now (it's one of the worst kept secrets in the industry)!

Concerning your Primare, we never did a good job selling them to the public so my store chain was no longer allowed to carry them after less than a year!

 

[peng]

Power rating can in fact affect audio quality but obviously it depends on a number of things so it is not always, or automatically. For example, the A35.8 should do audibly better than the A35.2 but not if you never need more than 100 W peak into 4 ohms for your application. Sorry about stating the obvious, but I suspect it may not seem obvious to some.

 

[peng]

Regardless, if I were in Europe, like the UK or France, I would go for the Cinema 50 because for 200-250 Euro more I prefer the look, actually like the Port hole too, instead of the AVR-X3800H that is more traditional looking.

After power searching for a deal on the much better looking (to me) Cinema 50, I decided to order the AVR-X3800H. Just couldn't justify paying C$1,400, that's C$1,610 more. My X1800H is listed on e-Bay now, nothing wrong with it but I really want to have more than one independent sub out. Also, with the 3800, it can also be a back up to my AVM70, naturally I hope it will never be called on that duty.

Is there any reason I should cancel the order? As far as I can tell, the AVR-X3800H seems relatively bug free, everything just work right?

 

[BentonF]

Is this a copy-paste from a whathifi-review?

No. I don’t read what hifi. It’s not a proper rag but page to page advertising.

 

[EWL5]

Is there any reason I should cancel the order? As far as I can tell, the AVR-X3800H seems relatively bug free, everything just work right?

Prime Day is this week and BF is coming soon for us Yanks!

 

[mhardy6647]

I finallly have coffee in hand this early in the morning and am now able to address these claims... LoL. I heard all those Sony, Denon, Technics, Marantz, Pioneer, Harman Kardon and other CD players up to about $2400 models in the later 80s and early 90s while they where connected to a switchbox and I never heard any difference. I also tried with headphones and found they where virtually the same. There sure where mechanical differences and finishing differences but sound quality is a big, "No."

You clearly lacked an appropriately revealing audiophile switchbox.
Pity.

ahem.

 

[peng]

Prime Day is this week and BF is coming soon for us Yanks!

I am getting it from Bestbuy.ca, so there's that 30 days return policy.

 

[Miker 1102]

Agreed, but not just $1K, marketing, internet hearsay also have similar effects. For example, in the M vs D case, by giving people the DAC filer and HDAM reasons... I can debunk such things by a simple and logical bottleneck analysis, but it won't can't convince fans who don't want to focus on logic, or theories. Ultimately it is their ears that they thought, count, the only that counts in the end.

As I said before, I got audibly better sound quality (sound stage got wider, deeper, crystal clear highs, rich and soft mid to mid highs, punch yet musical bass, more enveloping surround/height effects, etc. etc.) every time after I re-arrange/tidy up wiring clutter, layout, wipe and vacuum etc. I am not kidding!! Fact (to me) is, such cleaning up, tidying up exercise made more obvious difference than swapping out an Denon AVR to Marantz AVP(s), back to Denon AVR, and then to Anthem AVP, or swapping out a HK receiver to cheap Denon AVRs, do separate preamp, dacs, Bryston, Parasound, Hypex, Purifi amps, you name it lol.... We just don't know what others hear, or think they hear period, so it is almost silly to even debate which brand, models sound different, better, worse, same, or similar because people are not going to agree, or convinced one way or another, at least I have never read about any case where a D brand fan managed to convince a M brand fan, or the same with the A brands (Arcam, Anthem) or even vice versa.

In this case, the fact is, it you search on the internet for forum reviews hard enough, you will find a good spectrum of user's preference, those as you alluded to, $1K can do some wonder so it does seem that there are more nicer reviews on products that sell for more, even if they have the same guts, measurements, and in fact for the D vs M, there are more D's that measured better than the M's on ASR, yet it made no difference, there are more nicer subjective reviews for the M's and then people would draw the conclusion that the M brand is better for music (of course and the cheaper D brand is for movies, when less serious listening is anticipates as emphasis might be on the "effects" and video performance. That's just observed, perceived "facts", not verifiable, measurable facts.

Very good points Peng. I have to admit after several years of reading reviews I don't understand what an hdam does or what "warm" does. I learned enough to tweak an avr to get a good sound of it has Audyssey.