Marantz AV10 AV Processor Review

[exm]

Because a full Dirac license is 4 X the cost.

People buying a $7,000 processor are concerned about this? I mean, I guess.

 

[Oddball]

Because it is not set in stone which one will work better in your room and with your system. If you are looking for auto calibration run, with potentially minor adjustments, then Dirac with DLBC will most likely be better out of the box. But with Audy you will actually have much more room to tweak albeit there are some limitations that one would need to understand. Distance with D&M Dirac is 17m vs only 6m with Audy. 6m is sometimes too short if DSP on sub is heavily used or subs are far away (which it should not be as SPL loss is staggering). There are some workarounds, but they are not very elegant.

It's unfortunately all really complicated once you enter the rabbit hole. The only way you will know is have both in your system, make sure you have done most you can to optimise/tweak calibrations, measure, listen and then make the call which one is the keeper.

 

[Moonbase]

Because it is not set in stone which one will work better in your room and with your system. If you are looking for auto calibration run, with potentially minor adjustments, then Dirac with DLBC will most likely be better out of the box. But with Audy you will actually have much more room to tweak albeit there are some limitations that one would need to understand. Distance with D&M Dirac is 17m vs only 6m with Audy. 6m is sometimes too short if DSP on sub is heavily used or subs are far away (which it should not be as SPL loss is staggering). There are some workarounds, but they are not very elegant.

It's unfortunately all really complicated once you enter the rabbit hole. The only way you will know is have both in your system, make sure you have done most you can to optimise/tweak calibrations, measure, listen and then make the call which one is the keeper.

It would be interesting to understand in what ways Audy has more adjustment than Dirac. There is plenty of tweaking possible in both products.

 

[GXAlan]

It would be interesting to understand in what ways Audy has more adjustment than Dirac. There is plenty of tweaking possible in both products.

The most obvious one is Audyssey Dynamic Volume.

Edit: Only the monolith HTP-1 has Dirac + Loudness option in this price range.

 

[KenMasters]

It would be interesting to understand in what ways Audy has more adjustment than Dirac. There is plenty of tweaking possible in both products.

You can do a fully manual calibration with MultEQ-X, deriving filters from REW for example, not sure if that's possible with Dirac (I haven't used it). You can download it to trial it on a dummy system.

 

[peng]

The amount of taps is set in hardware. Systems that can do correction at >48 kHz for example utilize more taps to make that correction. In the case of StormAudio, they use two processors but restrict the correction to 48 kHz, resulting in twice the taps available.

That said, if you think about PEQ, there are a bunch of different ways to achieve the same curve (think about REW’s auto EQ). That optimization may be better with MultEQ-X as compared to the iOS app. My understanding is that the iOS app just sends a curve to the processor to do the calculation whereas MultEQ-X actually uses your laptop/desktop CPU to generate the filters when transmitting the data.

That would give better tracking of the target curve without needing more hardware.

Pretty sure the $20 app uses the device (phone or tablet) to do the calculation, not just sending the curve.

 

[Oddball]

It would be interesting to understand in what ways Audy has more adjustment than Dirac. There is plenty of tweaking possible in both products.

Absolutely right - you should do it and figure out for yourself. Good luck with it as not that straight forward. I am not going to teach Audy vs. Dirac calibration class yet again. There are many posts and threads in this forum to that extent so if interested, then look them up. And not really sure what tweaking of base setup differences you are looking for?

 

[Goodfellas27]

I completely agree but didn't mention it for fear of getting lynched by the Dirac crowd here. LOL
The MultiEQ-X app should offer 90% of what a full Dirac package should cost at a fraction of the cost..
YMMV

It's the only RoomEQ that offers Impulse time alignment, etc. You get what you pay for

 

[Sal1950]

It's the only RoomEQ that offers Impulse time alignment, etc.

What is, Dirac?
Are you sure about that?
Dirac Live or
Dirac ART?

 

[Oddball]

It's the only RoomEQ that offers Impulse time alignment, etc. You get what you pay for

Actually you can do all this with REW and cheaper DSP, which also might support MSO that will work even better, or you can do it manually on Audy MultiEQ-X with REW. Best waterfall charts are done with MSO, not Dirac or Audy.

There is absolutely no secret source with Dirac and DLBC except it does it better on auto run, but then you do run out of adjustment options. ART is a different story, but still being written.

You should drop more than a line when arguing things that have been written over many pages otherwise people might not take it seriously.

 

[Mark K]

Improve as in better sound quality?
The older Marantz AV's definitely had some measurable issues with their internal DACs and other design issues. Then there is the fact the both unit's offer better versions of Audyssey and Dirac is also an option. So yes, I believe the upgrade to an AV10 offers some definite path improvements to better sound quality.
You didn't mention what your current power amps are so impossible to say if there's any room for improvement there. No doubt the new Toppings and many other modern power amps offer improved measured performance. But whether they can offer any improvement in sound quality is highly debatable. What ya got now?

I've been using Marantz multiple channel AV amp MM 7055
to drive my surrounds, mid and another Marantz MM7025 to drive my fronts.
While watching movies has been OK but listening to music is too much for my ears
I plan to separate a dedicated music listening by connecting my DMP A8 to either my old shelved Red Rose Affirmation to a pair of small Leema Xero
Or if price is right to get at least a pair of Topping B200s

 

[exm]

I've been using Marantz multiple channel AV amp MM 7055
to drive my surrounds, mid and another Marantz MM7025 to drive my fronts.
While watching movies has been OK but listening to music is too much for my ears
I plan to separate a dedicated music listening by connecting my DMP A8 to either my old shelved Red Rose Affirmation to a pair of small Leema Xero
Or if price is right to get at least a pair of Topping B200s

I used to be all Marantz; had the MM7055 also but I changed that to a Hypex NC502 amp. Can't say I can hear the difference but I love the extra power and cooler amp.

 

[Mark K]

I get your point...

 

[Acerun]

Because a full Dirac license is 4 X the cost.

And you can try to find the gene from audioholics interview with the main guy from Audy who explains with Crystal clarity why the $20 app is is crap and why the $200 app is actually doing the real deal. I've posted it before but I can try to find it.

 

[Acerun]

Than the $20 app built by D&M that is a huge step up from the built in solutions, but well shy of the MultiEQ-X. It is easy to see from the interfaces of both apps that MultiEQ-X has so many more options and adjustments can be much more precise.

Just a speculation on my part (as neither D&M or Audy wanted to confirm other differences), but MultiEQ-X probably has significantly more taps to deploy, thus advantage of being able to track the curve more accurately. Never spend time trying to prove this, so just a gut feel based on comparing the sound - not worth much. I would not be surprised though as apparently Storm claims that their implementation of Dirac has more taps than the competition.

Find the video with Gene audioholics and Audy. Audy clearly confirms the differences.

 

[GXAlan]

It's the only RoomEQ that offers Impulse time alignment, etc. You get what you pay for

Phase Alignment of Subs – Why I don’t use the impulse response

OK. The saga continues down below………………………. What is the best way to phase align our subwoofers to the mains? There is a hint in the way the que…

bobmccarthy.com

Definitely not straightforward…

 

[Acerun]

I found the video with Gene and Audessey discussing Multieq-x 1.5 release, but also what the $20 app is actually doing compared to the $200 app developed by Audessey. The whole video is very good IMO but if you want to jump right to it, probably start listening around 16 min mark.

 

[Miker 1102]

I think the problem is multi-fold. When it comes to mainstream sources of content today

1) 4K UHD discs never succeeded on the PC. There was a very small window of time where you could buy a UHD BD drive, Cyberlink PowerDVD, and playback UHD discs. This required fancy Intel integrated graphics with a secure content pathway to reduce the chance of casual copying/pirating. Since you couldn't use AMD/NVIDIA GPUs and Intel removed that feature in later CPUs, it became a dead end.

2) 4K streaming sources like Disney+, Vudu, Netflix, Paramount+ and Amazon Prime restrict video to 1080p on PCs so you're not getting the best performance.

3) As headphones have gotten more and more popular, this is a large market of PC users.

So you can imagine that if the codec gatekeepers cut the licensing fees in half, they'd have to sell 2X as many licenses to end up in the same place. If they only cut the price a little, it's not clear that they would make "a lot more money."

We have well documented science that listening in stereo masks frequency response issues that you can pick up in mono. Listening to movies in surround sound goes even further. I honestly think that high SINAD high transparency electronics is fun for us hobbyists, but entry level Atmos through something like Sony STR-DH790 for $350 is going to sound great for those on a budget regardless of what the DAC SINAD actually measures.

I know this is old but you are spot on with your post. I still use a windows pc for my movies and music. It's amazing how far ahead of the curve the free programming community was. I am so grateful to the developers of the free use codecs and media players. The industry has always been greedy with thier drm and fair use.
I really loved the fact that you brought up the Sony as well.. It was the first avr I ever bought. I went from stereo ( I used to downmix my own audio streams into 2 channel and remux my movies)into an expensive soundbar that I loved. It was a clean set up that I used for a long time. I decided to buy a home theater system right before Covid..weird and the Sony adh 790 was what I bought. Wow..that sounded very good to me and that type of box gets dumped on by audiophiles. I thought it sounded great but would overheat listening to music. For 300 dollars with height speakers it was fantastic!! It overheated when I played music to much so I went up the sound ladder and down the audiophile hole from there. Now I own kefs and a 2500 dollar avr. If I hadn't pushed the "loudness" thing with the Sony ..I would be about 15k up and happily ignorant.

 

[andrewskaterrr]

Any updates on Dirac ART? I may sell my JBL SDP-55 and pick up a used AV10 if it's confirmed to get Dirac ART. I don't see any recent news so far, only the old European leak.

 

[Madhuski]

Any updates on Dirac ART? I may sell my JBL SDP-55 and pick up a used AV10 if it's confirmed to get Dirac ART. I don't see any recent news so far, only the old European leak.

no new news.