Marantz Cinema 70s AVR Review

[pogo]

i.e. was originally the NAD C3050, but I am liking the Yamaha R-N800A because it has more line inputs

If you have the Dirac Live/BluOS module installed, you can expand the inputs separately with up to four Bluesound HUBs.
The LE version already has the module installed as standard.

 

[ziggurcat]

If you have the Dirac Live/BluOS module installed, you can expand the inputs separately with up to four Bluesound HUBs.
The LE version already has the module installed as standard.

I don't believe the LE version is available anymore since they only made 1972 of them. Plus it's way more than I am willing to spend (I am in Canada, so... we get gouged up the wazoo on these things).

 

[Descartes]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Marantz Cinema 70s home theater Audio/Video Receiver (AVR). It was kindly drop shipped by a member and costs US $1,200.
View attachment 333466
The 70s sports the new industrial design of Marantz AV products which I very much like. It looks even more attractive in this slim package. The display is not very informative but I can see it fitting the style now better than it ever did. Back panel shows a simpler layout which again, I prefer:
View attachment 333467

Many of us want a compact setup to go with our flat panel TVs or alternatively serve as our main music and TV/video sound and this is all we need really.

I updated the 70s to latest firmware which took about 10 minutes but otherwise was effortless.

Marantz Cinema 70s DAC/Pre-out Measurements
As usual we start with pre-out to determine the fidelity of digital to analog conversion. Per testing of prior Denon/Marantz products I set the volume to 82.5 and managed to nicely get the 2 volt output using HDMI as a source: (all testing with the output set to "Pre-out")
View attachment 333468
I was really hoping to see noise+distortion as expressed in SINAD to be north of 100 dB but it was not meant to be. I did try Toslink to see if that is any better:

View attachment 333470
The "grass" in the FFT noise floor improves but SINAD remains the same. Going with what we have, the 70s lands in not so good ranking:
View attachment 333471

Sweeping the input levels shows that optimal performance is at lower voltage although you don't gain much:
View attachment 333472

Multitone is at lower level so benefits from above factor:
View attachment 333473

IMD sweep though shows that more optimizations should have been done in noise and distortion front:
View attachment 333474

For comparisons to measurements elsewhere, here is 50 Hz response:
View attachment 333475

There is no filter selection so I was worried that we would see the very slow one from previous generation Marantz products. Fortunately they have adopted a more proper one:
View attachment 333476
Out of band attenuation is very modest though which will cause pain in the wideband THD+N measurements below. Frequency response shows the appropriateness of the filter in that domain:
View attachment 333477

Here is what I talked about:
View attachment 333478

Analyzing the spectrum of a 1 kHz tone shows that the ultrasonic energy is indeed the problem:
View attachment 333576

The unit is susceptible to audio samples when it comes to jitter:
View attachment 333480

Linearity is not great although better than some other AV products:
View attachment 333481

Not a lot to celebrate here although if you look at the review of Marantz NR1510, you will see that it has much rougher results even though top numbers are close.

Marantz Cinema 70s Amplifier Measurements
When I test an amplifier, I first let it warm up at 5 watts into 2 channels of a 4 ohm load. I show this at the end usually since it usually is not eventful. That was not the case here:
View attachment 333482
I left the amp running for a bit and was very surprised when I looked and saw that jump in distortion around 2 minutes. It also has this odd behavior in that every time you send it audio, distortion is higher and then settles down after about 7 seconds. While the amp was warm I don't expect the amplifier to go into any kind of mode to protect itself with just 10 watts of output. Note that I had ECO mode turned off (double checked). Performance before this effect clicked in was already poor. Giving up another 10 dB is just a sin. Here is the same issue in the dashboard:
View attachment 333489

After a minute or two you get this:
View attachment 333490

As noted, once the AVR goes into this mode, you can't get out of it unless you power cycle the amp. Simply turned down the volume, stopping the source, etc. won't make a difference. I almost stopped here as this is just unacceptable. As a minimum it should be documented. But then I considered that the company doesn't seem to be making claims about 4 ohm ability (lowest power rating is at 6 ohm) so I decided to continue and used the better SINAD value in the rankings:
View attachment 333491

If I use the lower number, it would literally fall of the right side of the chart!

Here is an FFT of before and after warm up:
View attachment 333502

FYI I could not replicate the issue at 1 and 2 watts.

Back to the dashboard, I also tested with analog input:
View attachment 333492

Performance is essentially the same so I continued testing with that as that makes comparison to stand-alone amplifiers easier. But I did confirm that in Pure Direct mode, the input is NOT digitized:

View attachment 333493

I set the crossover to 80 Hz and there, if you don't go to Pure Direct, you not only get that crossover, but output gets limited to which indicates it is going through an ADC. Nice to see even in that condition the bandwidth is large seeing how you have output to almost 48 kHz making me think sampling rate of the ADC is 88/96 kHz.

Noise performance is not great at 5 watts but improves at full power:
View attachment 333494

Note that you lose some of this with EQ so we really need better performance.

Multiutone shows the busy grass indicating a lot of intermodulation distortion:
View attachment 333495

Same with 19+20 kHz tones:

View attachment 333497



Crosstalk could definitely be better:
View attachment 333499

We see the distortion kink in the power measurements:
View attachment 333500

Good headroom though since I am only testing two channels and there is power supply capacity for more:
View attachment 333501

Here is the 8 ohm sweep:
View attachment 333503
We beat the spec by 15%.

Sweeping frequencies doesn't impact the overall response but the "hump" behavior changes:
View attachment 333504
FYI sweeping at higher levels caused the AVR to go into protection and would not recover on its own, requiring power cycle. Gave me a scare thinking it was damaged for good!

Conclusions
On the heels of the Marantz AV10 processor review, I had my hopes high for excellent performance but that was dashed with the Cinema 70s. While there seems to be some improvement compared to prior generation, the overall picture doesn't change. DAC performance is just "OK" and amplifier rather poor. Once price goes north of $1,000 I expect better performance. The good looks are there but sadly, the rest is not.

I can't recommend the Marantz Cinema 70s. Company can and should do better.

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

Thank you for all your reviews, I can’t understand why companies such as Massimo who works in the healthcare industry making medical devices can release products that are subpar such as this receiver! Especially since The Marantz AV10 is spectacular regarding SINAD, with économie of scale all their receivers should be as good as the reference rather than creating such bad ones!

Very unfortunate as from one model to the other no one can predict how they will perform without independent testing and analysis.
Again big thank you Amir!

 

[Descartes]

Just finish chatting with Denon, as expected, they didn't even understand my two questions, but was willing to have someone get back to me via email.

Typical unfortunately they don’t train their customer service staff very well!

 

[peng]

Typical unfortunately they don’t train their customer service staff very well!

I do appreciate the fact that they did get back to me, and the answers would likely be from their second line personnel, the response was:

My original enquiry:

Hello, I am considering purchasing a Cinema 70 from Gibbys Electronic Supermarket, and it is a "B" stock. Again, my questions are on the Cinema 70 but I had to select NR1711 under AVR because there are no choices for the Cinema series AVRs

Before I do, I would like to know the following:

a) In Direct mode and Pure direct mode, can it be set to have the subwoofer outputs "on", that is active and the front channels set to "small", and crossover set, to say, 80 Hz such the signals below 80 Hz will be sent to the subouts? I know in Stereo mode I can do that but how about Direct mode, or even Pure direct mode.

b) I need a) to work because I will be using Dirac Live PC standalone version so I will be using the analog inputs in direct mode. In that scenario, when using HDMI output from my notebook PC running window, can I then configure output the 2.1 and expect the subout to receive the calibration chirps from my PC, in other words, the subout will just be working like a 3rd channel?

Marantz response:

A. Setting the 'Bass Mode' to LFE+Main' should get you the Sub playing in most any sound mode.

B. As long as your source is sending the audio in a discrete channel to the subwoofer analog input, it should work in theory

You should get whatever audio the original output has. If it has a discrete subwoofer channel it should work. If it's just 2.0 audio, it should not.

I also asked similar questions to Denon after they responded to my enquire about the DRA-900H, they also responded to my questions on the Cinema 70, and he even alerted me his response is about the Cinema 70, not the Stereo 70 that is closer to the DRA-900H that I originally enquired about.

The responses seems to align with what I anticipated, though still a little vague. I think I am going to wait until those things go on sale from my local BB store, then I can get one to try it out as it will be easy to return if it does not do what I want. Or I might just go for the C$400 (tax in) Motu M4 that I know will work, just more complicated to set it up correctly.

I can definitely sense a difference in thee quality of customer support from D+M, after the Masimo acquisition, and seems to be better, much better.

 

[SebDFW]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Marantz Cinema 70s home theater Audio/Video Receiver (AVR). It was kindly drop shipped by a member and costs US $1,200.
View attachment 333466
The 70s sports the new industrial design of Marantz AV products which I very much like. It looks even more attractive in this slim package. The display is not very informative but I can see it fitting the style now better than it ever did. Back panel shows a simpler layout which again, I prefer:
View attachment 333467

Many of us want a compact setup to go with our flat panel TVs or alternatively serve as our main music and TV/video sound and this is all we need really.

I updated the 70s to latest firmware which took about 10 minutes but otherwise was effortless.

Marantz Cinema 70s DAC/Pre-out Measurements
As usual we start with pre-out to determine the fidelity of digital to analog conversion. Per testing of prior Denon/Marantz products I set the volume to 82.5 and managed to nicely get the 2 volt output using HDMI as a source: (all testing with the output set to "Pre-out")
View attachment 333468
I was really hoping to see noise+distortion as expressed in SINAD to be north of 100 dB but it was not meant to be. I did try Toslink to see if that is any better:

View attachment 333470
The "grass" in the FFT noise floor improves but SINAD remains the same. Going with what we have, the 70s lands in not so good ranking:
View attachment 333471

Sweeping the input levels shows that optimal performance is at lower voltage although you don't gain much:
View attachment 333472

Multitone is at lower level so benefits from above factor:
View attachment 333473

IMD sweep though shows that more optimizations should have been done in noise and distortion front:
View attachment 333474

For comparisons to measurements elsewhere, here is 50 Hz response:
View attachment 333475

There is no filter selection so I was worried that we would see the very slow one from previous generation Marantz products. Fortunately they have adopted a more proper one:
View attachment 333476
Out of band attenuation is very modest though which will cause pain in the wideband THD+N measurements below. Frequency response shows the appropriateness of the filter in that domain:
View attachment 333477

Here is what I talked about:
View attachment 333478

Analyzing the spectrum of a 1 kHz tone shows that the ultrasonic energy is indeed the problem:
View attachment 333576

The unit is susceptible to audio samples when it comes to jitter:
View attachment 333480

Linearity is not great although better than some other AV products:
View attachment 333481

Not a lot to celebrate here although if you look at the review of Marantz NR1510, you will see that it has much rougher results even though top numbers are close.

Marantz Cinema 70s Amplifier Measurements
When I test an amplifier, I first let it warm up at 5 watts into 2 channels of a 4 ohm load. I show this at the end usually since it usually is not eventful. That was not the case here:
View attachment 333482
I left the amp running for a bit and was very surprised when I looked and saw that jump in distortion around 2 minutes. It also has this odd behavior in that every time you send it audio, distortion is higher and then settles down after about 7 seconds. While the amp was warm I don't expect the amplifier to go into any kind of mode to protect itself with just 10 watts of output. Note that I had ECO mode turned off (double checked). Performance before this effect clicked in was already poor. Giving up another 10 dB is just a sin. Here is the same issue in the dashboard:
View attachment 333489

After a minute or two you get this:
View attachment 333490

As noted, once the AVR goes into this mode, you can't get out of it unless you power cycle the amp. Simply turned down the volume, stopping the source, etc. won't make a difference. I almost stopped here as this is just unacceptable. As a minimum it should be documented. But then I considered that the company doesn't seem to be making claims about 4 ohm ability (lowest power rating is at 6 ohm) so I decided to continue and used the better SINAD value in the rankings:
View attachment 333491

If I use the lower number, it would literally fall of the right side of the chart!

Here is an FFT of before and after warm up:
View attachment 333502

FYI I could not replicate the issue at 1 and 2 watts.

Back to the dashboard, I also tested with analog input:
View attachment 333492

Performance is essentially the same so I continued testing with that as that makes comparison to stand-alone amplifiers easier. But I did confirm that in Pure Direct mode, the input is NOT digitized:

View attachment 333493

I set the crossover to 80 Hz and there, if you don't go to Pure Direct, you not only get that crossover, but output gets limited to which indicates it is going through an ADC. Nice to see even in that condition the bandwidth is large seeing how you have output to almost 48 kHz making me think sampling rate of the ADC is 88/96 kHz.

Noise performance is not great at 5 watts but improves at full power:
View attachment 333494

Note that you lose some of this with EQ so we really need better performance.

Multiutone shows the busy grass indicating a lot of intermodulation distortion:
View attachment 333495

Same with 19+20 kHz tones:

View attachment 333497



Crosstalk could definitely be better:
View attachment 333499

We see the distortion kink in the power measurements:
View attachment 333500

Good headroom though since I am only testing two channels and there is power supply capacity for more:
View attachment 333501

Here is the 8 ohm sweep:
View attachment 333503
We beat the spec by 15%.

Sweeping frequencies doesn't impact the overall response but the "hump" behavior changes:
View attachment 333504
FYI sweeping at higher levels caused the AVR to go into protection and would not recover on its own, requiring power cycle. Gave me a scare thinking it was damaged for good!

Conclusions
On the heels of the Marantz AV10 processor review, I had my hopes high for excellent performance but that was dashed with the Cinema 70s. While there seems to be some improvement compared to prior generation, the overall picture doesn't change. DAC performance is just "OK" and amplifier rather poor. Once price goes north of $1,000 I expect better performance. The good looks are there but sadly, the rest is not.

I can't recommend the Marantz Cinema 70s. Company can and should do better.

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

Hey Amir,

Thanks for an amazingly detailed review. I’ve had this unit for a couple years now (way before your review ). I’ve encountered a particular issue with poor volume level and a somewhat compressed sound quality when listening to any source, other than Internet Radio (which sounds amazing). The Cinema 70s is driving a pair of Sonus Faber Cremona M full-range speakers along with a Martin Logan Descent sub.

Marantz’ workaround was to increase the “Source Level” for every other input to its MAX (+12dB). However, even then I need to crank up the volume significantly to get it anywhere near the output level of “Internet Radio”. I have not experienced this with any other AVR I’ve owned.

My question is, would a set of Purifi 7040 monoblocks remedy some of this? Or, is this a poor internal architecture/circuitry issue and I should be looking at a different unit to serve as a Pre Amp. I know I’m underpowered for my Cremonas, and planned on getting the monoblocks either way.

I do like this unit as a Pre for all of my input devices (OPPO, MoFi Ultradeck, Streaming, Roku, PS5…) but am mostly concerned about sound quality. So video processing is not at the top of my list. But from what I gather, the DAC on this Cinema 70s isn’t the best and I doubt the Phono stage is any good either.

I looked at the NAD M33, but like the idea of separates at that price point. I could do 2 Buckeyes, a GoldNote PH10 and a decent Pre for same coin. I’m certainly not as well versed in the technical department as most members here, but want to make sure I do the Cremonas right.

Thanks for your input

 

[pogo]

STEREO magazine measurements for 70S:
@4ohms, stereo, 1% THD: 81W per channel
@4ohms, multi-ch, 1% THD: 12W per channel
@4ohms, Impulse power, 1kHz: 99W

... and for C50:
@4ohms, stereo, 1% THD: 32W per channel
@4ohms, multi-ch, 1% THD: 32W per channel
@4ohms, Impulse power, 1kHz: 42W

 

[EWL5]

STEREO magazine measurements for 70S:
@4ohms, stereo, 1% THD: 81W per channel
@4ohms, multi-ch, 1% THD: 12W per channel
@4ohms, Impulse power, 1kHz: 99W

... and for C50:
@4ohms, stereo, 1% THD: 32W per channel
@4ohms, multi-ch, 1% THD: 32W per channel
@4ohms, Impulse power, 1kHz: 42W

I think you are referencing the Stereo 70S and not the Cinema 70S. Please confirm.

Stereo 70S

STEREO 70s - Slimline Stereo Receiver with 75W, 8K and 6 HDMI Inputs | Marantz - US

Slimline Stereo Receiver with 75W, 8K and 6 HDMI Inputs

www.marantz.com

Cinema 70S

CINEMA 70s - Slimline 7.2 Channel AV Receiver with 50W, 8K and 6 HDMI Inputs | Marantz - US

Slimline 7.2 Channel AV Receiver with 50W, 8K and 6 HDMI Inputs

www.marantz.com

 

[peng]

I think you are referencing the Stereo 70S and not the Cinema 70S. Please confirm.

Stereo 70S

STEREO 70s - Slimline Stereo Receiver with 75W, 8K and 6 HDMI Inputs | Marantz - US

Slimline Stereo Receiver with 75W, 8K and 6 HDMI Inputs

www.marantz.com

Cinema 70S

CINEMA 70s - Slimline 7.2 Channel AV Receiver with 50W, 8K and 6 HDMI Inputs | Marantz - US

Slimline 7.2 Channel AV Receiver with 50W, 8K and 6 HDMI Inputs

www.marantz.com

Stereo 70S will do better than 12 WPC lol, so he must be referrin to the C70S.

 

[peng]

Here's Audiovision.de's tests on the Cinema 60. The C50 should be similar, if not better.

So, you can see that results among different review test results will vary quite a bit, as they may use different instruments, standards, methodology etc.

 

[EWL5]

Here's Audiovision.de's tests on the Cinema 60. The C50 should be similar, if not better.

So, you can see that results among different review test results will vary quite a bit, as they may use different instruments, standards, methodology etc.

Is there a link or pics?

 

[peng]

Is there a link or pics?

Yes, but to be clear, such test results might be useful if used to compare other units measured by audiovision.de, as a standalone test it should be taken as some sort of rough guidance in estimate the output capabilities of such units.

Below is an extreme example, the Cinema 60 versus the A1H. The Cinema 50 and 40 would be more comparable, with the 40 doing quite a bit better based on the larger power supply. The 60 is very good because its power supply seem to be only slightly smaller than the Cinema 50's so we can expect the Cinema 50, if measured by Audiovision.de, the results would likely be very similar to the Cinema 60's. The Cinema 70S's power supply would likely be significantly smaller due to the slimline's physical and cost constraints.

Marantz Cinema 60 (Test)

audiovision.de

Cinema 60

AVC-X3800H:

AVC-A1H:

 

[pogo]

I think you are referencing the Stereo 70S and not the Cinema 70S. Please confirm.

 

[pogo]

The 1kHz measurements at Audiovision are not really meaningful for real operation, e.g. full-bandwidth.

 

[Sal1950]

The good looks are there but sadly, the rest is not.

I can't recommend the Marantz Cinema 70s. Company can and should do better.

Bummer.
As a long term Marantz fan I am once more very disappointed by the performance of this piece..
There are lots of things to be aware of here but I do have to say I'm just not very surprised..
I hate to be crude but IMHO you just cant pack 10lbs of crap in a 5lb box and expect to come out roses.
Specially with an 7.2 channel product..
AVR's today have a LOT being asked of them, expecting top performance from a slim-line product IMO is
just a bridge too far. Lord people, be willing to give up some reasonable space if you want to go multich
or just stick to stereo..

 

[Descartes]

Thanks, Amir!

Appropriate naming Cinema from the 70s.

Thank you, will you be reviewing the Cinema 30?

 

[peng]

For US market only, not for EU, at least I wasn't able to find a X1800H with Pre-Out, nor a X2800H, a few weeks ago when I was looking to buy an AVR.

I know this is the thread for the Cinema 70, but just want to follow up on this X1800H because it is not on sale in Canada for C$799, that is US$570.
It definitely, and officially has 2.1 pre outs as confirmed on both Denon Canada and US website, but if you buy from dealers such as Amazon, Bestbuy etc., you may get the models with only subouts but no FL/FR pre outs.

This is really interesting as many obviously did not know there are X1800H that has FL/FR pre outs. So for those who want to use a cheap AVR for two channel use, and that has the ability to run Dirac Live using the PC standalone version, then the X1800H could be a much lower cost option than the Cinema 70.

From Denon websit:

From Amazon.com website:

 

[ziggurcat]

I know this is the thread for the Cinema 70, but just want to follow up on this X1800H because it is not on sale in Canada for C$799, that is US$570.
It definitely, and officially has 2.1 pre outs as confirmed on both Denon Canada and US website, but if you buy from dealers such as Amazon, Bestbuy etc., you may get the models with only subouts but no FL/FR pre outs.

This is really interesting as many obviously did not know there are X1800H that has FL/FR pre outs. So for those who want to use a cheap AVR for two channel use, and that has the ability to run Dirac Live using the PC standalone version, then the X1800H could be a much lower cost option than the Cinema 70.

From Denon websit:

From Amazon.com website:

I have considered this AVR in my plan to "downsize", and I haven't taken it off my list quite yet - I'm surprised that this model seems to have more options/features than the X2800H (in that the X2800H does not have any Front pre-outs). I also don't believe that Dirac is available for the X1800H, I am certain it only has Audyssey MultEQ XT (unless they added it via FW update?)

 

[peng]

I have considered this AVR in my plan to "downsize", and I haven't taken it off my list quite yet - I'm surprised that this model seems to have more options/features than the X2800H (in that the X2800H does not have any Front pre-outs). I also don't believe that Dirac is available for the X1800H, I am certain it only has Audyssey MultEQ XT (unless they added it via FW update?)

Yes, but as I mentioned, I am buying it (just picked one up this morning, dealer gave me a better deal than the sales price) for use with Dirac Live PC standalone version.

So, I will use direct mode, processing will be by windows and Dirac Live (DLBC).

 

[peng]

Got mine un boxed but no hooked up yet. I has the "front" preouts, so 2.1, not just .1, it also has Z2 pre outs and digital coax input, that the one one don't have. It seems that the European model is the one missing those connections, though it is strange, as Bestbuy.ca and Amazon.ca also show the model that are missing those connections. I can't wait to hook it up, and I fully expect it to "sound" as good as my previous X4400H, and the Cinema 70 that I almost bought but did not. I say so because the preout/dac sections appears to be the same, that is, same volume, opa,dac ICs. The Cinema 70 does not have HDAMs, that make it really virtually the same as Denon's.

One other advantage the Denon has is that it has Audyssey XT, I won't be using it but it is nice to know it's there if I need to use it. For some reason, the much more expensive Cinema 70 comes with the MultEQ version that is the lowest Audyssey version, that offers lower resolution.