This is a review and detailed measurements of the Marantz AV7705 UHD Home Theater Audio Video Processor. It is on kind loan from a member. The AV7705 costs US $2,200 from Amazon with free shipping. From what I have read this unit is current until October of 2020.
The design is typical of Marantz AV products:
Typical of these processors, the back panel is full of connectors (they sell by the number of these seemingly):
Despite its massive size, the box is not that heavy and has fair bit of empty space to one end.
I reset the unit for testing and then used the front panel buttons to configure it. This was a super pain. The 4-way control has poor debounce and sensitivity making it so difficult to navigate using it. I don't know how something as simple as this escapes the quality assurance people at a Japanese company.
I am always happy to see XLR outputs. This is doubly nice here as connection to remote subs over these may cause nasty ground loops that are hard to remove. Note that this is a double insulated device and has no safety ground.
Coax Input Audio Measurements
I performed most of my testing with S/PDIF coax input. I then performed a couple of sanity checks using HDMI that I show in the next section. Testing using HDMI forces me to route my display though the AVR which usually screws up the refresh rate, dynamic range or both. So I try to keep that testing to the minimum.
Here is our dashboard with the volume set to nominal 4 volts that audio DACs support (all testing is in Pure Direct mode unless said otherwise):
It is quite a bad result. When I reviewed the Marantz AV8805, people complained that the company only specs the unit at 2.4 volts so I should have tested it that way. I don't agree but to keep the fighting at minimum, here is that performance:
While this beats Marantz spec for THD+N, it is still nothing to write home about as is not what one needs for just 16 bit audio:
Among AVRs, using the lower 2.4 value of SINAD we get:
So middle of the road but that is not saying much.
Dynamic range was decent:
Jitter and noise test shows many, many sources of interference:
While the levels are low, these sources of noise are dependently likely on what the unit is doing. They could very well get worse given lack of attention to proper isolation of sensitive audio circuits from the rest of the unit.
Multitone shows increasing distortion with frequency:
Intermodulation distortion relative to digital input level shows the issues with output overload:
At full output, you get something like 12 volt output but it is *severely* distorted. I have no idea what Marantz was thinking in designing an output stage that goes that high but is distorted during most of its range. Keeping the display level below 82 gives you the graph in pink. It is not nearly as good as my $250 desktop DAC and headphone amplifier (dashed blue).
Linearity as with AV8805 is surprisingly good:
Sweeping input frequency and measuring THD+N with wide bandwidth of 90 kHz gives us the same awful picture as with AV8805:
Distortion is not actually going up but rather, there are ultrasonic components due to very weak reconstruction filter:
That's not all though. The filter does a number in the audible band as well:
I don't usually run this test with DACs since they are usually very flat to 20 kHz. Not here. That slow filter truncates your audible high frequencies while taking its time to filter out the ultrasonic components. A failed grade if I ever saw one. I suspect the same is true of AV8805 as well.
HDMI Audio Measurements
Our overall performance is the same with HDMI relative to Coax Input:
Jitter test shows substantially higher unwanted pulses which is typical as more circuits are lit up inside the unit:
Conclusions
Even though the Marantz A8805 had similar performance I gave it a passing grade. Not anymore. There is not one sign of engineering excellence here. More time and effort has been spent lining up gold connectors on the back than to make sure some basic performance targets are achieved. I mean how hard is it to get a 20 kHz flat response? There is no design hygiene whatsoever as indicated in the jitter spectrum.
And why, why can't a Japanese company with such a long history not be able to design an analog output stage for a DAC that delivers 4 volts of output? Have all the designers left and this is some farmed out design to China/Taiwan? I could forgive them for getting networking software wrong but basic analog design? In a $2,200 mostly audio product?
Enough is enough. Marantz and the rest of the AVR manufacturers, please wake up. Don't keep producing substandard products.
Needless to say, I cannot recommend the Marantz AV7705. But it because you want its features, not because it is doing anything special.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Working late on Saturday. Which other reviewer does that? Nobody. So please donate anything you can for my overtime pay using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
The design is typical of Marantz AV products:
Typical of these processors, the back panel is full of connectors (they sell by the number of these seemingly):
Despite its massive size, the box is not that heavy and has fair bit of empty space to one end.
I reset the unit for testing and then used the front panel buttons to configure it. This was a super pain. The 4-way control has poor debounce and sensitivity making it so difficult to navigate using it. I don't know how something as simple as this escapes the quality assurance people at a Japanese company.
I am always happy to see XLR outputs. This is doubly nice here as connection to remote subs over these may cause nasty ground loops that are hard to remove. Note that this is a double insulated device and has no safety ground.
Coax Input Audio Measurements
I performed most of my testing with S/PDIF coax input. I then performed a couple of sanity checks using HDMI that I show in the next section. Testing using HDMI forces me to route my display though the AVR which usually screws up the refresh rate, dynamic range or both. So I try to keep that testing to the minimum.
Here is our dashboard with the volume set to nominal 4 volts that audio DACs support (all testing is in Pure Direct mode unless said otherwise):
It is quite a bad result. When I reviewed the Marantz AV8805, people complained that the company only specs the unit at 2.4 volts so I should have tested it that way. I don't agree but to keep the fighting at minimum, here is that performance:
While this beats Marantz spec for THD+N, it is still nothing to write home about as is not what one needs for just 16 bit audio:
Among AVRs, using the lower 2.4 value of SINAD we get:
So middle of the road but that is not saying much.
Dynamic range was decent:
Jitter and noise test shows many, many sources of interference:
While the levels are low, these sources of noise are dependently likely on what the unit is doing. They could very well get worse given lack of attention to proper isolation of sensitive audio circuits from the rest of the unit.
Multitone shows increasing distortion with frequency:
Intermodulation distortion relative to digital input level shows the issues with output overload:
At full output, you get something like 12 volt output but it is *severely* distorted. I have no idea what Marantz was thinking in designing an output stage that goes that high but is distorted during most of its range. Keeping the display level below 82 gives you the graph in pink. It is not nearly as good as my $250 desktop DAC and headphone amplifier (dashed blue).
Linearity as with AV8805 is surprisingly good:
Sweeping input frequency and measuring THD+N with wide bandwidth of 90 kHz gives us the same awful picture as with AV8805:
Distortion is not actually going up but rather, there are ultrasonic components due to very weak reconstruction filter:
That's not all though. The filter does a number in the audible band as well:
I don't usually run this test with DACs since they are usually very flat to 20 kHz. Not here. That slow filter truncates your audible high frequencies while taking its time to filter out the ultrasonic components. A failed grade if I ever saw one. I suspect the same is true of AV8805 as well.
HDMI Audio Measurements
Our overall performance is the same with HDMI relative to Coax Input:
Jitter test shows substantially higher unwanted pulses which is typical as more circuits are lit up inside the unit:
Conclusions
Even though the Marantz A8805 had similar performance I gave it a passing grade. Not anymore. There is not one sign of engineering excellence here. More time and effort has been spent lining up gold connectors on the back than to make sure some basic performance targets are achieved. I mean how hard is it to get a 20 kHz flat response? There is no design hygiene whatsoever as indicated in the jitter spectrum.
And why, why can't a Japanese company with such a long history not be able to design an analog output stage for a DAC that delivers 4 volts of output? Have all the designers left and this is some farmed out design to China/Taiwan? I could forgive them for getting networking software wrong but basic analog design? In a $2,200 mostly audio product?
Enough is enough. Marantz and the rest of the AVR manufacturers, please wake up. Don't keep producing substandard products.
Needless to say, I cannot recommend the Marantz AV7705. But it because you want its features, not because it is doing anything special.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Working late on Saturday. Which other reviewer does that? Nobody. So please donate anything you can for my overtime pay using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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