I for one would love to see a processor only version of the C40, I would be all over that with both feet and my checkbook. Very decent performance with enough features to satisfy many if not all, though I am guessing by removing the power amps from the box, noise and crosstalk numbers would improve and with the speaker connectors gone there would sufficient real estate on the back panel for XLR connectors for all outputs. I think Marantz is missing a market segment worth capturing with a pre/pro that is not quite SOTA, just a notch down from their AV10. At a $2500 price point for this item they would give Emotiva and a bunch of others a reason to step up their game. They already have 95% of the work done to deliver such a product it just seems like a no-brainer to me.
I would love to have an AVP at price point below the C40, may be say at the same price point as an AVR-X3800H lol..
However, I wouldn't expect if Marantz just swapped the power amp section with a set of boards that provides XLR outputs, because if they do something similar to what they did with the SR7013/7015 AVRs and AV7705/7706 preamp processors that noise and crosstalk numbers would improve. That's based on ASR, and other sites measurements, as well as Marantz own specifications.
Just take a look of the two samples measured by Amir, one brand new, one refurbished:
So, I would say for better specs/measurements, they should do that but based such a $2,500 AV preamp processor on the Denon AVRs that have been getting better measured results in the past few years. Even the much more expensive AV8805 did worse than the Denon 3000 and 4000 series AVRs. The latest Marantz AVRs did measure better though but again, shouldn't based on the C40, but I would be fine with the C30.
The AVP did better in DNR, but then we are comparing pre out to power amp output, not really apples to apples.
The SR7015, that is the AVR the AV7705 is based on, actually measured a little better:
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Marantz SR7015 "8K" 9.2 channel Home Theater Audio/Video Receiver (AVR). It was purchased new and kindly sent to me by a member. The SR7015 costs US $2,300 from Amazon including Prime shipping. Not much to say about the design of the SR7015 as...
www.audiosciencereview.com