• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Marantz Cinema 70s AVR Review

Rate this AVR:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 184 62.0%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 84 28.3%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 17 5.7%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 12 4.0%

  • Total voters
    297
For 5 ft distance it should be fine in such applications but the C70’s amp section was not that great based on the measurements.
Thanks...meaning it might struggle with these speakers? I was really hoping to go with a slim receiver in this small room and I'm not thrilled with all I've read about the new JBL line up. I contacted Crutchfield and they said if I order the C70s and I don't like it for any reason just return it. I will probably go this route. If I don't like it then I'll be faced with the decision of adding a multi channel amp or choosing a different receiver. Time will tell. I do wish it had the better room correction.
 
Thanks...meaning it might struggle with these speakers? I was really hoping to go with a slim receiver in this small room and I'm not thrilled with all I've read about the new JBL line up. I contacted Crutchfield and they said if I order the C70s and I don't like it for any reason just return it. I will probably go this route. If I don't like it then I'll be faced with the decision of adding a multi channel amp or choosing a different receiver. Time will tell. I do wish it had the better room correction.
It has more than enough power, but distortions and noise are much higher than many other AVRs measured.

You may not mind the resulting sound quality as it is still low enough for a lot of people, but only you can tell. It is a known fact that many people may actually prefer certain distortions up to a point, that they find pleasing.

Room correction isn’t too bad if you use it for the 20-200 Hz range that MultEQ can di reasonably well. The $20 app can let you limit the “corrected” range.
 
It has more than enough power, but distortions and noise are much higher than many other AVRs measured.

You may not mind the resulting sound quality as it is still low enough for a lot of people, but only you can tell. It is a known fact that many people may actually prefer certain distortions up to a point, that they find pleasing.

Room correction isn’t too bad if you use it for the 20-200 Hz range that MultEQ can di reasonably well. The $20 app can let you limit the “corrected” range.
Yes, if I end up with Marantz (or Denon) I'll definitely get the app. I have no idea if my 66 year old ears could hear that distortion or not. :rolleyes:
 
I realize that the Marantz Cinema 70 is not the best A/V unit out there but money is a definite consideration in my case. I originally purchased an Emotivo xmc 1 and their 5 channel 1000 watt amplifier at $599 and $999. The amplifier is still operational but the XMC 1 died about 3 years ago and I have not been able to use my sound system since. They now have their Emotiva
Basx Mc1 13.2 Channel Dolby Atmos® & Dts:x™ Cinema Processor on sale for 20% off for a price in the $900's, I am not really an audiophile just like my music and movies loud and I have Polk Audio towers, Center, Surround and Sub that require big power to drive. I have always considered Marantz to be a well respected name for audio products. A little dissolutioned by the fact that my Emotiva XMC1 died within 5 years of ownership but I liked the fact that it was only a processor as my amp took care of powering my speakers.
Both units the Marantz Cinema 70 and the Emotiva MC1 received poor scores on this website but I am not gifted enough in these sound tests to make a good decision on which would be a better choice knowing that neither will be that great in the first place but adequate for my needs. Would it be possible for someone more knowledgable than myself to guide me with your opinions on which unit to purchase? I believe that the Emotiva is the same no amp processor as my XMC1 and might this be a benifit of something less to go wrong with the processor. Both of these units are within $100 of each other. Any support will be appreciated
 
I realize that the Marantz Cinema 70 is not the best A/V unit out there but money is a definite consideration in my case. I originally purchased an Emotivo xmc 1 and their 5 channel 1000 watt amplifier at $599 and $999. The amplifier is still operational but the XMC 1 died about 3 years ago and I have not been able to use my sound system since. They now have their Emotiva
Basx Mc1 13.2 Channel Dolby Atmos® & Dts:x™ Cinema Processor on sale for 20% off for a price in the $900's, I am not really an audiophile just like my music and movies loud and I have Polk Audio towers, Center, Surround and Sub that require big power to drive. I have always considered Marantz to be a well respected name for audio products. A little dissolutioned by the fact that my Emotiva XMC1 died within 5 years of ownership but I liked the fact that it was only a processor as my amp took care of powering my speakers.
Both units the Marantz Cinema 70 and the Emotiva MC1 received poor scores on this website but I am not gifted enough in these sound tests to make a good decision on which would be a better choice knowing that neither will be that great in the first place but adequate for my needs. Would it be possible for someone more knowledgable than myself to guide me with your opinions on which unit to purchase? I believe that the Emotiva is the same no amp processor as my XMC1 and might this be a benifit of something less to go wrong with the processor. Both of these units are within $100 of each other. Any support will be appreciated
An RZ50 or 3800 could easily be had in your price range and you could make use of the pre-outs to your external amp! No need to buy an actual processor as really good ones fall out of your price range anyway!
 
I was thinking of getting this for my office setup (PC) for gaming.
My PC just has onboard audio (Realtek® ALC1220-VB CODEC) and then my video is from an AMD 7900xt through displayport to an Alienware 34" monitor )Gigabyte B650 Aorus Pro AX motherboard if that matters.
Would I be best to just run optical out from my PC to the Marantz 70s if I just want 5.1 audio? I am happy with how the video is connected from my GPU.
My speakers are Elac Carina BS and a C speaker.
 
I was thinking of getting this for my office setup (PC) for gaming.
My PC just has onboard audio (Realtek® ALC1220-VB CODEC) and then my video is from an AMD 7900xt through displayport to an Alienware 34" monitor )Gigabyte B650 Aorus Pro AX motherboard if that matters.
Would I be best to just run optical out from my PC to the Marantz 70s if I just want 5.1 audio? I am happy with how the video is connected from my GPU.
My speakers are Elac Carina BS and a C speaker.
I think you'd need HDMI for 5.1. Toslink only supports 5.1 if DD/DTS encoded.
 
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 your rewiev.
I was about to buy the unit, to use it as a processor. That will not be the case now. It`s a blow for Marantz to deliver something so out of class, and it does not matter that it looks nice. I use a Marantz NR1606, with a NAD C296 as power and with 6 ohm speakers. It sounds beautiful. Sadly the 1606 lack pre-outs for other than the front speakers. So I guess I`ll wait and see. I will also try a external DAC, to use it together with the 1606 in Pure Direct mode
Thx.
 
Last edited:
Thank you for your rewiev.
I was about to buy the unit, to use it as a processor. That will not be the case now. It`s a blow for Marantz to deliver something so out of class, and it does not matter that it looks nice. I use a Marantz NR1606, with a NAD C296 as power and with 6 ohm speakers. It sounds beautiful. Sadly the 1606 lack pre-outs for other than the front speakers. So I guess I`ll wait and see. I will also try a external DAC, to use it together with the 1606 in Pure Direct mode
Thx.
Not sure what you expect from a bottom of the line $1200 AVR?
For use as a processor and with a 94db SINAD it such supply very respectable performance.
There are a whole bunch of more expensive stuff listed that offer much less.
Just sayin,
 
My lowly 1510 makes me happy every day. The noise floor of my house envelops any noise my system makes. I used to chase SPL. This forum almost made me chase SINAD. Glad I don't give too much of a crap. As long as it is clean above -80db and lives longer than 5 years I'm good.
 
Seems fine as a processor/pre-amplifier (and HEOS streamer). You do not have to use the amplifiers!
 
Back
Top Bottom