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Marantz AV8805A Review (AV Processor)

Pdxwayne

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In any event, IMO the Marantz prepro offers poorer performance at similar price point to Denon 8500. So they use the same engine, remove the amplifiers, replace the nice front panel display with a circle you need a telescope to read, add circuitry that reduces performance and balanced outs that most people can do without unless there is a great distance between prepro and amp. Tell me again would I should buy that?
When you can get one used at a great price.
That was how I got my 8801.
; )
 

peng

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In any event, IMO the Marantz prepro offers poorer performance at similar price point to Denon 8500.

Based on Crutchfield price, the Denon X8500HA is $500 less, still similar enough I guess..:)
 

MacCali

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I am new to this forum. I have been in this hobby for 40 years. One thing I have found is your ears are the best measure of quality and the best arbiter of what to buy. Buying and creating "hifi" is different than "home theatre". What most people do now is try to have the best of both. Some would use measurements here to somewhat guide them but mostly I think they are just trying to validate their purchase decisions. Let me say that we are impacted by budgets and wives that also impact those decisions. I happen to be lucky enough to have a family room where "hifi" happens and a dedicated home theatre where theatre things happen. For hifi, I use a Mcintosh MX122 and a MC257 and MC312 Mcintosh amp with Wilson Sabrina mains and Watch channel 3 center. For the theatre, a Marantz 7705 and a Outlaws 7 channel amp. with Focal Electra Mains, Center, Surrounds and MartinLogan Sub. Over the decades and IMO, the speakers make the largest difference in sound quality. Using a processor vs a receiver lowers noise, minimizes heat, and that extends component life. Before the 7705 I used the 8801 and it was very good to my ears. Other factors impact the theatre experience - room setup, size, width, ceiling, fabrics or lack of them, subwoofer, etc. But bottom line, the environment drives your decisions much like buying a camera is driven by needs that will be utilized. Guiding your purchases based on measured but inaudible criteria is like an amateur photographer buying a Canon R5 for running on auto with a point and shoot configuration. There is no audible difference between a Marantz 8015 and an 8805a or a Denon 8500. There is a difference in heat, noise, hum, and their will be a difference in costs of installing dedicated circuits for amps, and their will be obsolescence issues every 6-7 years. There are people who can blast their sound levels and people who can't because of the environment - home vs condo/apartment. So buy what you need for the near term and don't worry about specs because what is the best thing today will not be in 2 years but will you hear it is the question. I have read analysis from England where a sound engineer examined how much sound occurred at 30hz, at 40hz, 50hz, 60hz and beyond. There is hardly any sound at all below 41hz, virtually nothing. How many people will listen with their friends or families a movie or stereo sound beyond 88db? What is audible is your key measure not anything else. For me, I buy the best I need. Then I backfill to secondary rooms or sell equipment just after the next major format shift. This may help some do what's right for them.
I think also based on your comment being someone new to audio you must consider experience as everything.

For me as a new person in audio you can put almost anything in front of me and I am pleased as I have little to no expectations. However, as you venture into the hobby I find that to be definitely not the case. Not everything is the best, and yet nothing is perfect. Like a check list there’s certain aspects which will check boxes you prefer to hear.

However, there’s definitely room to expand. Better does exist. And if you watch the review Amir had just posted, everyone seems to have an equal interpretation of what is better. It correlates with measurements and therefore it’s good to consider that. I was very much in the same boat as what you mentioned. However it seems you can’t deny results.

I think I am fairly settled.. I am not trying to spend much more money than I already have. I do have two future purchases in mind. However I will be waiting until 2023 to complete this.

Audio isn’t a cheap hobby. It has far surpassed anything I’ve spent on and has easily reached the price of a new car in less than a year. Which includes headphones, home theater, and dedicated stereo system for music. I would definitely heed caution in trying to reach perfection and just be happy you don’t know the best to further indulge in going deeper into this rabbit hole.

Unless you got a money tree.
 

truwarrior22

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I am new to this forum. I have been in this hobby for 40 years. One thing I have found is your ears are the best measure of quality and the best arbiter of what to buy. Buying and creating "hifi" is different than "home theatre". What most people do now is try to have the best of both. Some would use measurements here to somewhat guide them but mostly I think they are just trying to validate their purchase decisions. Let me say that we are impacted by budgets and wives that also impact those decisions. I happen to be lucky enough to have a family room where "hifi" happens and a dedicated home theatre where theatre things happen. For hifi, I use a Mcintosh MX122 and a MC257 and MC312 Mcintosh amp with Wilson Sabrina mains and Watch channel 3 center. For the theatre, a Marantz 7705 and a Outlaws 7 channel amp. with Focal Electra Mains, Center, Surrounds and MartinLogan Sub. Over the decades and IMO, the speakers make the largest difference in sound quality. Using a processor vs a receiver lowers noise, minimizes heat, and that extends component life. Before the 7705 I used the 8801 and it was very good to my ears. Other factors impact the theatre experience - room setup, size, width, ceiling, fabrics or lack of them, subwoofer, etc. But bottom line, the environment drives your decisions much like buying a camera is driven by needs that will be utilized. Guiding your purchases based on measured but inaudible criteria is like an amateur photographer buying a Canon R5 for running on auto with a point and shoot configuration. There is no audible difference between a Marantz 8015 and an 8805a or a Denon 8500. There is a difference in heat, noise, hum, and their will be a difference in costs of installing dedicated circuits for amps, and their will be obsolescence issues every 6-7 years. There are people who can blast their sound levels and people who can't because of the environment - home vs condo/apartment. So buy what you need for the near term and don't worry about specs because what is the best thing today will not be in 2 years but will you hear it is the question. I have read analysis from England where a sound engineer examined how much sound occurred at 30hz, at 40hz, 50hz, 60hz and beyond. There is hardly any sound at all below 41hz, virtually nothing. How many people will listen with their friends or families a movie or stereo sound beyond 88db? What is audible is your key measure not anything else. For me, I buy the best I need. Then I backfill to secondary rooms or sell equipment just after the next major format shift. This may help some do what's right for them.
Speakers do make the biggest difference in your room, but there are audible differences between Denon and Marantz at least in pure direct and between a SR7015 and X4700. Just go to a couple Best Buy Magnolia and listen in pure direct, you can literally switch back and forth within a second. When your done at the first store, go to the next to confirm your results. Maybe I’m just lucky to be near so many to actually listen. Is it a huge difference or does one sound better than the other? I don’t think so, but when you hear it, you’ll dwell on it. Probably depends on your preferences too. If you have to struggle to find the difference, your probably best off choosing Denon unless you go with Marantz for some other reason.
 
OP
amirm

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How can you feed LPCM sampled at 44.1 kHz containing whitenoise to a DAC and exceed 22.05 kHz in that digital data? Output may exceed that depending on the DAC reconstruction filter and analog signal path interference?
That dependence is what we are checking. Reconstruction of digital data creates ton of high frequency energy that a full brick wall filter is to be used in theory get rid of. If you have such a filter then it matters not that some of the illegal energy is in the content itself.
 

tparm

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The Monoprice HTP-1 is the better 16 channel processor for $4,000 because Dirac and more granular bass management.

View attachment 149146
Does anyone know if the DAC or processing chips sets have been changed in these like D&M? Also I guess anyone that owns one of these and listens to 2CH playback just accepts the internal DACs and has Dirac engaged? I want(ed) one of these but found that it doesn’t have a Direct/Pure Direct/Reference Stereo path so all signals are digitized. Seems a huge oversight. At a glance it seems as if the Anthem AVMs don’t have a pure analog path either, true? Comes down to Emotiva and D&M products for those that care about such things.
 

multisport4me

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Monoprice claims they have not yet changed DACs yet but there is a video interview of the product manager who recently said they may have to move to lower-end DACs for all but the main L/C/R channels.

The HTP-1 can pass the signal unprocessed if you want to playback 2-channel 24/96 for instance, it will pass that signal through untouched. It isn't as clearly delineated as Pure Direct on D&M, but the same thing conceptually. Now how a D&M in Pure Direct vs. an HTP-1 with Dirac off and passing Native signals compares on the bench would be interesting.
 

peng

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Monoprice claims they have not yet changed DACs yet but there is a video interview of the product manager who recently said they may have to move to lower-end DACs for all but the main L/C/R channels.

The HTP-1 can pass the signal unprocessed if you want to playback 2-channel 24/96 for instance, it will pass that signal through untouched. It isn't as clearly delineated as Pure Direct on D&M, but the same thing conceptually. Now how a D&M in Pure Direct vs. an HTP-1 with Dirac off and passing Native signals compares on the bench would be interesting.

Im my opinion it is fine to use cheaper dacs if a trade off needs to be made in order to use better ones on the LCR. As long as the cheap ones are good enough, such as the ES9006, ie SINAD better than 102 dB. Yamaha used todo that sort of things.
 

bigguyca

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Monoprice claims they have not yet changed DACs yet but there is a video interview of the product manager who recently said they may have to move to lower-end DACs for all but the main L/C/R channels.

The HTP-1 can pass the signal unprocessed if you want to playback 2-channel 24/96 for instance, it will pass that signal through untouched. It isn't as clearly delineated as Pure Direct on D&M, but the same thing conceptually. Now how a D&M in Pure Direct vs. an HTP-1 with Dirac off and passing Native signals compares on the bench would be interesting.

Higher performance is preferred

The money for the DAC IC's and associated circuity either goes into the product or into Monoprice's pocket. I'd vote for the product, but I'm not a Monoprice fanboy. Their products are very good, but reducing the overall quality is a bad move. Customers siding blindly with vendors, even when they are negatively affected, at times, seems a type of Stockholm syndrome.

Hopefully (a bad word) the DAC/volume control/output board in the HTP1 will be revised along with this move to lower quality DAC's The oddball/unfortunate gain structure of that board, which I've described several times here, reduces the maximum output voltage by 6dB and adds noise and distortion.

Other than the cost of revising the board, which will be incurred with the DAC IC downgrade, there would be no added cost in changing the output circuitry. Overall performance would certainly be improved for the L/C/R channels, if the DAC quality in those three channels isn't downgraded.

Changing the gain structure of the DAC/volume control/output board (output circuitry actually) would hopefully (there is that word again) eliminate the confusion in setting the maximum output voltage, which still exists. It is painful to read posts on AVS where non-technical owners (which seem to be in the majority) are trying to understand gain structure.

Now if Monoprice was more interested in quality, and had the technical chops, it would use a relay to switch gain at least once along the volume control range, as for example RME does in some of their products. This design could lead to really outstanding measurements.
 

tparm

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I would be afraid to buy any processor or AVR right now. Maybe Yamaha has a lag up since they’ve used ESS DACs for years. Understandably there are several components being switched around by most manufacturers and I’d be worried about the implementation versus simply getting product on trucks and in consumers hands. Maybe these “old” buggy pieces some of us are using aren’t so bad after all! ;) It is nice to see the addition of multiple speaker profiles on the flagship A models with D&M, that was a bummer on the OG 8500 et al.
 

tparm

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Monoprice claims they have not yet changed DACs yet but there is a video interview of the product manager who recently said they may have to move to lower-end DACs for all but the main L/C/R channels.

The HTP-1 can pass the signal unprocessed if you want to playback 2-channel 24/96 for instance, it will pass that signal through untouched. It isn't as clearly delineated as Pure Direct on D&M, but the same thing conceptually. Now how a D&M in Pure Direct vs. an HTP-1 with Dirac off and passing Native signals compares on the bench would be interesting.
Good to know, thank you. I run my Node and a CD player through an X16 DAC and balanced to my processor, playback is in Stereo Reference, and it sounds incredibly good to me. No balanced inputs on the HTP-1 is also a bit of a head-scratcher. Of course the Anthem and Arcam/JBL don’t either which is a shame as there may be more gained with sources than processor to amps, Yamaha even includes them on their higher end AVRs. I guess I should take solace in there isn’t anything out there right now I want to spend money on to replace my RMC-1L!

PS I suppose listening to 2CH digitized with Dirac engaged could sound as good or better then my current method, but there is always the thought that it may not. I will try it on my 1L once I run Dirac (waiting for a bar in the back of my room to be completed).
 
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multisport4me

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Higher performance is preferred

The money for the DAC IC's and associated circuity either goes into the product or into Monoprice's pocket. I'd vote for the product, but I'm not a Monoprice fanboy. Their products are very good, but reducing the overall quality is a bad move. Customers siding blindly with vendors, even when they are negatively affected, at times, seems a type of Stockholm syndrome.

Hopefully (a bad word) the DAC/volume control/output board in the HTP1 will be revised along with this move to lower quality DAC's The oddball/unfortunate gain structure of that board, which I've described several times here, reduces the maximum output voltage by 6dB and adds noise and distortion.

Other than the cost of revising the board, which will be incurred with the DAC IC downgrade, there would be no added cost in changing the output circuitry. Overall performance would certainly be improved for the L/C/R channels, if the DAC quality in those three channels isn't downgraded.

Changing the gain structure of the DAC/volume control/output board (output circuitry actually) would hopefully (there is that word again) eliminate the confusion in setting the maximum output voltage, which still exists. It is painful to read posts on AVS where non-technical owners (which seem to be in the majority) are trying to understand gain structure.

Now if Monoprice was more interested in quality, and had the technical chops, it would use a relay to switch gain at least once along the volume control range, as for example RME does in some of their products. This design could lead to really outstanding measurements.

Great take - thanks bigguyca.

I do hope they'll offer a redesigned DAC/volume/output board but I don't see this being something Monoprice would do. But it would be nice. I think they'd rev the product and release as HTP-2 or something like that. Or maybe they'll pull a D&M and fix it with a new board but launch it as an HTP-1HA. :) Frankly, I'd probably pay for such a new board if I could. But it ain't happening IMO.

Admittedly, I'm one of the idiots that have struggled with understanding the crazy gain structuring aerobatics needed to dial the thing in. It is by far the most annoying thing about the product for me right now.
 

wseroyer

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Marantz continues to further my point, "what is the point of Marantz" They are nothing more than inferior Denon Products for more money.
 

wseroyer

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Amir, is it possible to have a AV processor as good as decent topping DAC? Why a Denon receiver with a cheaper price tag can have a better measurement?

Dealers / Youtubers those that were recommending this unit over a Denon receiver are lying to us. They claim to have golden ears.

No more. Long live AudioScienceReview.com
ps. I want to see D'agostino product measurements.

Dealers / You Tubers are nothing more then a extension of D/M marketing department it's why they "hear" a drastic difference between Denon and Marantz and will say BS like "the Marantz is more musical and warm sounding" what does that even mean? my x4700h plays music just fine and it gets very very warm, too warm in my opinion. I bet if you put my x4700h up against a SR7015 I wouldn't be able to tell a difference even if the Marantz measured slightly worse.
 

SynthesisCinema

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Dealers / You Tubers are nothing more then a extension of D/M marketing department it's why they "hear" a drastic difference between Denon and Marantz and will say BS like "the Marantz is more musical and warm sounding" what does that even mean? my x4700h plays music just fine and it gets very very warm, too warm in my opinion. I bet if you put my x4700h up against a SR7015 I wouldn't be able to tell a difference even if the Marantz measured slightly worse.

Have you tried the ECO "Auto" mode as it should run bit cooler without affecting the performance like "On" position would?!
 

wseroyer

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Have you tried the ECO "Auto" mode as it should run bit cooler without affecting the performance like "On" position would?!
Yes I always have it in ECO "Auto" and I have a AC Infinity Aircom T8 on top of it, it just runs very hot and heats my room up when i'm watching movies or playing games, i'm not worried about it over heating, 9 power amps in a 7ch box are just going to create a lot of heat regardless of what I do.
 

peng

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Have you tried the ECO "Auto" mode as it should run bit cooler without affecting the performance like "On" position would?!

It depends, but it would affect performance because the so called auto is triggered by the volume setting. For example, if you have the volume set to say -35, auto and "ON" will be the same because at that level ECO will be on full time except when the unit senses no signal for a period of time(for 2018 and later models, otherwise it will stay "ON" even in standby mode. If volume is set to say, -25, then "auto" and "off" will be the same so the unit won't run any cooler, except again when the unit senses no signal for a long time. It is a simple/stupid design, instead of switching based on output, it is based on volume. It is not completely useless, just not as useful/effective as one may expect.
 

Oniiz86

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I would be afraid to buy any processor or AVR right now. Maybe Yamaha has a lag up since they’ve used ESS DACs for years. Understandably there are several components being switched around by most manufacturers and I’d be worried about the implementation versus simply getting product on trucks and in consumers hands. Maybe these “old” buggy pieces some of us are using aren’t so bad after all! ;) It is nice to see the addition of multiple speaker profiles on the flagship A models with D&M, that was a bummer on the OG 8500 et al.

Has it been confirmed by owners that the X8500HA/AV8805A now have the Dual Speaker Preset capability, I thought it was a hardware limitation, the only difference with the "A" revision is the 2.1 board change & the "New & Improved" ESS DACs ;)
 

tparm

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Has it been confirmed by owners that the X8500HA/AV8805A now have the Dual Speaker Preset capability, I thought it was a hardware limitation, the only difference with the "A" revision is the 2.1 board change & the "New & Improved" ESS DACs ;)
I thought that was interesting too. According to both (D&M) sites and Crutchfield they do have the dual presets.
 
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