The 7701 was also better, AFAIR I measured around 0.002% THD (4 times better than spec) and its XLR output could deliver much more voltage than 4V rms.
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Looking to upgrade my Processor (Marantz AV8801)
- Thread starter Audiophilehi
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That's interesting, the AV8801 measured 0.00948% THD+N at 2 V RCA, that's more than 4x higher than your 7701. I would like to think it should be the other way around, wonder why the 7701 could do better, are there different versions of the 7701? I do recall the 7702, or maybe the 7703 do have a couple different versions.
I bought the 7701 very cheap (€ 999) shortly before the 7702 was released. Here is a THD measurement at specified output voltage (2.4 Vrms), where THD of -92.8 dB equals 0.0023%.
and Multitone:
Thank you for including more details. Just noted 2 key points:
- we should use THD+N to compare with Amir’s SINAD, not THD.
- 2.4 V xlr is 1.2 V RCA, that’s why your measured results are so much better than ASR/Amir’s that was measured at 4 V xlr or 2 V RCA.
For the 7705, he did also measure at 1.2 V RCA that would have been 2.4 V Xlr, in that case his results were about the same as yours. So the 7701 wasn’t better, but about the same as the 7705. That’s what one would expect, based on their specs and design.
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The peak THD was around -96 dB atabout 12 V rms, AFAIR. Have to check the graphs later.
Please do check, and the reference ASR graphs are as follow, thanks to Amir, he tested two samples:
Note what he stated at the time (Aug 2021:
"You might say that 4 volt output is high so let's test different outputs"
As I mentioned, when he tested it at lower output level, the results became similar to yours (2.5 V vs your 2.4 V):
The other specimen (he tested in Feb 2020) did somewhat better, 92 dB SINAD at the slightly lower level (only 2.35 V) you used:
The bottom line, is, I am familiar with Marantz AVCs based on the available SMs and I know the 7701, 7702 were still using the very average DAC IC, the PCM1690. The much better AK4458 was only used in the later versions of the AV7702 through AV7705 (until after the AKM factory fire, then they headed South again).
Also, the upgraded volume IC was not in use until the 7704, or maybe the 7703 (not 100% on that one) so those earlier models were still using the LSI (large scale integrated) IC that does a lot more than just volume control). All those facts point to why the 7704, or again, the 7703, through the 7705 (at least the earlier versions) could not possibly do better. All these are of course mostly academic, it is doubtful the difference volume and dac ICs would make audible difference to non golden ear class, lol..., and in this case, we can see that even SINAD measurements didn't show much, likely because the HDAMs in those devices are the limiting factor, and that would seem to be until the SR8015, followed by the Cinema series, that all show improved SINAD, comparable to Denon AVRs that never used HDAMs.
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