So many small companies putting out some amazing devices lately. Ironically the company with arguably some of the deepest engineering pockets comes out with a lot mediocrity. Marantz is not the only one. Maybe the high fidelity market will shift more from larger name brands to smaller companies who are turning in better homework...for less money.
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Marantz M1 Streaming Amplifier Review
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respice finem
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Maybe success makes lazy?
Sokel
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Marantz was never a big "audiophile" name, most likely a Hi-Fi one, decent overall.
Maybe some gear touched the hyped crowd but generally not so much.
respice finem
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But they made enough money with being what they were (if there is such a thing as enough, for a company in this day and age).
tineared
Senior Member
I always admired their horizontal flywheel tuning knob
I never bought one, but I admired them...
Absolutely! As long as you don't use the broken RCA inputs. Lots of features make this a great value, at $150.Is it though
TurtlePaul
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Hopefully Samsung/Harman has the engineer chops to make these Sound United brands not put out bad products.
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My experience with the HEOS app has been nothing but negative, it's just dreadful.
This appears to be in direct competition with the WiiM Pro Amp, which costs 1/3 as much, performs better, and has better software. Absolutely no-brainer, Marantz needs to improve absolutely everything about this offering for it to make any sense in the market - cut the price in half, improve performance, improve software, before anyone should even cast a glance in its direction.
This appears to be in direct competition with the WiiM Pro Amp, which costs 1/3 as much, performs better, and has better software. Absolutely no-brainer, Marantz needs to improve absolutely everything about this offering for it to make any sense in the market - cut the price in half, improve performance, improve software, before anyone should even cast a glance in its direction.
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Most Denon/Marantz stuff is really good. This is a surprising aberration.
Roland68
Major Contributor
The M1's measurements and problems don't particularly surprise me. It's simply the result of the last 10 years and what has become of Marantz.
Many of you forget that the original Marantz company and everything that defined Marantz no longer exist and are lost.
Marantz benefited from its American founder, Saul Marantz, from the establishment of Marantz Far East/Japan, from the relocation of production and development to Japan, from the Japanese engineer Ken Ishiwata, from the partial sale to Philips, from the long-standing collaboration and development of joint products with Philips, and also from the merger with Denon to form D&M Holdings Inc. Even then, development resources were being pooled and costs were being cut, and Philips also withdrew from its cooperation with Marantz.
But with the acquisition of the D&M Group by Sound United LLC in 2017, everything changed, and everything that originally defined Marantz ceased to exist. Ken Ishiwata was also dismissed.
Sound United belongs to DEI Holdings, a private equity firm. Anyone familiar with private equity firms can imagine what happened to Marantz and the other manufacturers during that period.
The whole thing seems to have been successful, as evidenced by the sale of Sound United to Masimo Corporation for over one billion US dollars.
One can only assume that the companies consolidated under Sound United lost too much substance and know-how, and that market developments in the audio/hi-fi sector worldwide took their toll, because in 2025 all the brands under Sound United, including Marantz, were acquired by Harman International Industries (Samsung) for 350 million US dollars.
It will be interesting to see what happens next.
Very convoluted history with the later focus more predicated on acquisition and profit vs a singular owner's point of pride. That seems like the course for many audio companies, a singular sometimes groundbreaking driving force, then a sale to a conglomerate. With predictable results. It's too bad companies like Buckeye, Topping etc. are probably not well know beyond well entrenched audiophiles and ASR readers. People are missing out.
My Denon AVR has an “eco” mode that I seem to recall impacts low power similarly. It may be similar here. You can disable it on my AVR, but I found that at any kind of reasonable listening level it turns off so I leave it enabled.
I believe it was done for European compliance, but I could be misremembering.
TurtlePaul
Major Contributor
I had a very similar thought regarding Marantz, Paul Klipsch, Bower & Wilkins and John B Lansing being founder led companies from the 1950s/60s hi-fi wave which then stray when the founder got too old. Clearly Sydney Harman did the best job of having the pursuit of excellence survive him but let's see what Samsung does (but the new JBLs look promising). Harman dodged a bullet when KKR almost bought them in 2007.
In my mind, the current wave of promising founders includes Purifi/Kii (Bruno Putzeys), Philharmonic (Dennis Murphy), Ascend (Dave Fabrikant), Topping (John Yang and Hailin Huang) and Buckeye (Dylan). Even companies I don't agree with from a sonic standpoint like GR Research, PS Audio and Grado headphones, the founders are clearly passionate and committed unlike the typical corporate worker at these PE owned companies and it shows.
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Ajax
Senior Member
Understood, however, IMO performance is not negotiable, whereas the feature set is very much dependent on the needs of the individual. In my case I use the Wiim Amp Ultra purely as a music source, using Spotify Connect (now CD quality in Aus) and Tidal Connect. I also utilise the Sub Out, Room Fit and PEQ.
I have the unit connected to a high quality 4 way speaker selector driving a pair of B&W AM01 external speakers on my rear patio (with active sub) and another pair on my front deck. There is also a pair of 8" ceiling speakers in my lounge room. I set the crosss over at 60 hz, which takes pressure of the amp and also the speakers without the sub as in reality they can't go that low. I put the selector into bypass mode when only listening to one pair.
I manage it all via the Wiim App and it works really well. Happy chappy.
Waxx
Major Contributor
For that price it certainly should be a lot better. Wiim and others do it better for a lot cheaper so....
The Wiim has Dolby Digital not Dolby Digital Plus. The Wiim has HDMI ARC not HDMI eARC. Dirac Live is available as an option for the Marantz M1. The M1 has subwoofer integration. HEOS was doing multi-room before anyone had heard of Wiim. It seems that you have no understanding. What I find irritating about the Wiim cult is the total lack of objectivity.
Audionaut
Major Contributor
I'm surprised that is only a marginal rejection, given the appallingly broken analogue input performance. And even the digital performance only matches the Wiim Amp Ultra analogue performance, and falls short by 12dB compared to the Wiim's digital performance, while still being 2x the price.
Hard pass from me also.
Hard pass from me also.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #59
It is a streamer so analog input is not the typical scenario for it.
This is all the more surprising given that the M1 is a FDA (Full Digital Amplifier), and one would assume that its digital performance should live up to its architecture.
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