Agreed, and to me, Marantz has been inching closer to what I want for a two channel integrated device. I only want the Stereo 80 or whatever the successor's name is, to include the following:
- Give us back the AKM DAC IC such as the successor of the AK4458 or even the old AK4490 will be acceptable, or the popular Sabre, but at least the ES9038Q2M that is near flagship class, for a change. A couple of the two channel DAC chips are not going to break their bank lol.., so no need to go cheap there, implementation costs more anyway, with the labor costs included.
- Include Async USB input, so that DLBC users are not limited to using HDMI input to configure for 2.1.
- Paid option to use DLBC would be nice but I can live without that if that's too much trouble for them.
That's not really asking a lot!
If the Stereo 70s only had some form of Audyssey, I may have kept my order in place. If there's a sensible solution to implement proper room correction, then I may be persuaded...