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Marantz NR1510 AVR Review

Rate this AVR:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 221 81.0%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 41 15.0%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 3 1.1%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 8 2.9%

  • Total voters
    273

TonyJZX

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i expect this is result of many things... eg. some big players have left this market, there's the movt. of soundbars and other trash into this arena... my local general hifi joints have given up on traditonal 'home cinema' because a lot of people dont care about that any more

its more about streaming to soundbars

anyone who's left are 'true beleivers' and will pay handsomely for the next gen
 

DonR

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I paid $350 for my NR1501 in 2011 shipped from the US. Prices have changed considerably but I doubt that the audio quality has.
 

DonR

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i expect this is result of many things... eg. some big players have left this market, there's the movt. of soundbars and other trash into this arena... my local general hifi joints have given up on traditonal 'home cinema' because a lot of people dont care about that any more

its more about streaming to soundbars

anyone who's left are 'true beleivers' and will pay handsomely for the next gen
It would be interesting to see how music is consumed today. Is it mostly soundbars or wireless earbuds?
 

nick-v

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The CINEMA 70 model is the most recent version of the Marantz NR1710, not the 1510. The 1710 was a 7 channel AVR, while the 15 series was 5 channel. The CINEMA 70 is 7 channels.
Their latest slim AVR model.
 

Beave

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Their latest slim AVR model.

Right, gotcha. I wonder if there will soon be a CINEMA version of this NR1510? Or if they're keeping the CINEMA name for higher end models only?
 

TonyJZX

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is there a series of Marantz stuff that isnt the Cinema series?

like the SR? NR line?

i assume the AV series of pre pros is also dead? its just Cinema from now on?
 
D

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For what it is and the price,it'll be fine.Obviously for small room low power listening no one will notice its shortcomings which is where I imagine most of these dwell.Better sound than the TV!
 

Metronomy

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I should point out that this is a refurbished unit for $444. I had mentioned this to @amirm, but that was back in July when we first started discussing reviewing it, but that fact didn't make it into the review. I use it for occasional bedroom TV in a TV hutch, so the size is really important, so I'll likely keep it.
I think that to hear screams and explosions a little healthy distortion doesn't hurt!
 

Cars-N-Cans

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Nothing like having to now pay $800 for a $200 AVR. And I love the out of the box thinking of literally slapping an HDMI cable inside the unit to use as a board-to-board interconnect. And that nice twist ensures that the board connector will randomly pop off at some point for added good measure after you move it one day. Classy...

But, I think they are missing a business opportunity given it has literally as much distortion as a lot of tube amps. Just slap some cheap Chinese tubes with orange LEDs under them on top of the cabinet and it can be sold as the "audiophile" version for about $40,000.
 

milosz

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Most buyers of units like this won't notice the poor SINAD as they will probably be watching lossy AC3 content off air, cable or satellite or listing to lossy MP3 streams. And if they do watch a disc or streaming service with high bitrate uncompressed audio they will convince themselves it sounds great, with "smooth almost analog high end....deep black audio background....palpable image depth...." etc and so forth.
 

TonyJZX

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i dont disagree with that

mp3 over bt would be common

however the unit does support flac and lossless and a slew of high bitrate formats to 24/192 but those charts shows its barely competant for redbook...


one would suggest this unit has a lot of sales engineering thrown at it above everything else
 

Bogda

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It comes down to stuffing or not stuffing a handful of components on the amp board (see pics above - the amp board is vertical, near the front, by the heat sink).

They, like other brands, charge a little bit of a premium for the 2-channel version. From the consumer point of view, you're basically paying them to remove a few parts.
Funny, where I live, NR1200 is actually around 15% more expensive than NR1510 and almost the same price as NR1711. You should get more stereo power with NR1200.
 

vkvedam

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I lived with the NR1602 for a good number of years before moving to the SR series which performs better compared to the slim line but nowhere near as it should be performing. Should have gone with Denon, what a miss!
 

Tangband

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I lived with the NR1602 for a good number of years before moving to the SR series which performs better compared to the slim line but nowhere near as it should be performing. Should have gone with Denon, what a miss!
To me its clear that the slow digital filtering is deliberately, to make the dac sound more ”analog” . We see this in almost all Marantz AVRs.
 

abdo123

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Most buyers of units like this won't notice the poor SINAD as they will probably be watching lossy AC3 content off air, cable or satellite or listing to lossy MP3 streams. And if they do watch a disc or streaming service with high bitrate uncompressed audio they will convince themselves it sounds great, with "smooth almost analog high end....deep black audio background....palpable image depth...." etc and so forth.
I don't think anyone can hear anything wrong with this AVR except maybe a lack of power, the noise performance is pretty impressive for the price.
 

Waxx

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Marantz and AVR systems was never good, so no surprise. Marantz is mainly good in analog 2 way class AB amplifiers, on AVR's they cut to much corners to stay cheap enough i have the impression.
 
OP
amirm

amirm

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@Amir if possible could you also measure the pre outs to see if it's usable as a preprocessor? Maybe just SINAD please?
That's what all the DAC measurements are.
 
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