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Marantz NR1510 AVR Review
- Thread starter amirm
- Start date
I have the Sonos Arc with the sub and rears for my bedroom setup. It is both great and bad.
You have great reliability and Trueplay room correction using your iPhone works very well. Sound quality is all hype. It’s good for a sound bar and while I like my Sonos Fives, for home theater the Sonos Arc is pretty lousy. I would bet a Studio 530, Studio 550P and this NR1510 to be a better solution. The Sonos Amp does work for a bedroom surround sound setup but setting levels and Delays are also very rudimentary.
For the size, Sonos Arc works great. It uses a lot of clever tricks to make it sound better than you expect a sound bar to sound. But compared even to a rudimentary receiver and speaker setup, it isn’t as good.
Well not being able to use a complex AV system with its 5 or 6 different remotes is just not manly. It’s like a fella not knowing how to change a tire on his own car. Pretty wimpy.
Seriously though there are other family members who don’t see AV as a hobby and just want the convenience of an appliance for their AV systems.
Seems boring to me but hey I had to write an instruction sheet for my ex just to use the TV or watch Netflix. I get it but I don’t respect it. Hahaha!
There is truth to that... I didn't mind the fooling around with the AVR but to my wife, that meant she would have nothing to do with it, same with the children.
HDMI CEC gives you the same single remote capability you get with a soundbar. One of the benefits of going with displays from Sony/Samsung/LG and receivers from Sony/D&M is the robust HDMI CEC testing and compatibility. It’s a shame that Sony pulled out of the market since they were the only company who had both AVRs and displays in the Atmos era. I have had excellent results with my CX-A5100 generation Yamaha processor but the latest 8K models from Yamaha reportedly aren’t as robust. I have had poor HDMI CEC control with Vizio displays.
I seriously doubt that ≈30 dB lower THD of the analogue amp that you see at 5W is due to model differences. The analogue amp output THD of Amirs result follow the pre out results. The THD I see from pre out is lower than -90 dB. Both your and my result points towards ≈30 dB lower THD than what Amir measures.@amirm, it’s a big regression in performance from the NR1608 that I measured a while back. I don't see my DAC measurements, but at least these are the analog amplifier measurements.
Note the frequency of the THD+N going from 20 to 88.2 kHz not your usual 20 kHz.
View attachment 249733
View attachment 249734
This is a Google Search for the internals of a NR1608. The brown capacitor on the left next to the power supply is bigger than the one on the NR1510. The WiFi module on the older unit is at the upper right on the NR1608 as opposed to the center on the NR1510. May being further away from the amplification circuitry helps. The wires coming off the power supply are twisted on the NR1608 but not on the NR1510. I wonder if those small changes makes a difference or if there is something else. I would have expected the DAC performance to drop, but not the amplification portion!
VS
So I still think there is something wrong in Amirs measurements or that the unit is faulty. The resemblance of these slim line models are too high to give such large differences in distortion.
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beagleman
Major Contributor
But then the counter to this.
We test DACs and other stand alone items here that cost $200.00 and do just one thing.
So are you expecting one device to do 10 things (DACs, Room correction, Tuner, Remote control, Several amp channels etc) and cost what exactly?
Galliardist
Major Contributor
I suspect that the licenses and associated legal costs for producing a modern AVR with the facilities of this one would result in a price over $200 US on their own.
That's not intended as an excuse for this product,
It’s possible. The 5 dB discrepancy between channels might reflect a broken unit. Still, if you look at something like the Anthem MRX520 or Arcam AVR10, it’s not completely out of the realm of possibility. Maybe the volume IC is part of the supply chain shortage? Alternatively, looking at the restored JBL SA-600, shipping damage could be an issue as well if the internal grounding had a failure. I missed your measurements — but until someone retests the NR1510, it will be hard to know.
@amirm, did Sound United/Masimo review these numbers or make any comment? We have seen regression on the X3800H but this seems to be a pretty big drop.
NR1510 is from 2019
Hmm. That’s is a very good point. There shouldn’t be any issues at that point in time. This really does suggest that either my NR1608 was a lucky sample somehow or this NR1510 is defective.
So far all of my measurements have “worse” than Amir’s so if anything, my Nr1608 should do even better. The only difference is my resistors are 4.48 ohms and if the amps really only handle 8 ohm speakers that 10% difference can throw things off. I would bet that it is internal grounding.
Vacceo
Major Contributor
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- Mar 9, 2022
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If CEC works well, it is one of the most convenient and easy to use interfaces.
The new DAC seems perform worse and there seems to be a noise increase in the -5 to 0 dBfs as Amir measured. So there are issues but I still wonder about the THD.
Quick & Dirty Measurements of Marantz NR1711 PCM5102A Version (05/2021+)
I am not aware of anybody measuring Marantz' 2020-2021 slimline series receivers with the updated PCm5102A DACs after the AK fire. Supposedly the NR series does not have Marantz' infamous HDAM/JDAM/AMRAAM/NSAM/AMTRAK or whatever they are called. I recently came into ownership of a Cosmos ADC...
www.audiosciencereview.com
My measurements of the 1710 is here:
A few measurements of the Marantz NR1710 slim line AV amp (update jan 2024, power amp section)
An update of measurements in post 16. I just made some simple measurements via pre out of my slim line Marantz NR1710. Not having much advanced equipment but my 18 year old M-Audio Transit DAC and ADC was used to test it in various ways. It only supports 44,1/16 bit when used both ways...
www.audiosciencereview.com
The THD disappeared with the measurement laptop on battery.
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Cars-N-Cans
Addicted to Fun and Learning
Obviously I was being a bit hyperbolic, but this is just a 5.1 system. In their desire to save money and slum it with a linear amp that still runs reasonably cool it has such bad performance that it might even be subjectively audible and produce more distortion than the speakers hooked to it at some frequencies. Even a lot of tube amps will have less distortion, and the DAC part alone would be marginal for a speaker amp. It’s not so much the $800 price tag, but the $800 price tag with the thing being built way down to a cost to pinch pennies. Granted we also have inflation, but at least it could have mediocre performance so it wont have the possibility of degrading the audio.
Cars-N-Cans
Addicted to Fun and Learning
Since it’s so marginal its possible the performance can be worse since here the amp is only being asked to drive a resistive load on the two front channels. With all the channels driven there will be more ripple as well as the complex and varying impedance of loudspeakers. Conceivably this could make the distortion numbers worse. It’s probably not audible, but it’s not leaving much margin with a broad spray of harmonics at relatively high levels. I’m not particularly picky about numbers but I do at least want some confidence it won’t have a possibility of being audible.
Marc v E
Major Contributor
I reason this way: the designers of the cd thought 96db signal would be sufficient. To play a file cleanly -as it is, without alteration- you need a greater sinad than the source material that it plays. Iirc that takes around 10 db headroom to have a drop of 0.5db sinad that you can measure at the output. So 106db sinad would be a minimum if it is your desire to transport the signal cleanly. I think that's where the ' high bar' of 115db sinad comes from. Then you'll know for sure the signal is unaltered.
If this is audible or not very much depends on:
- the listener (how old is he/she, what is the state of his/her hearing)
- the speakers (the highest sources of distortion; for example are you playing through genelec 8351's or average hifi speakers costing a few hundred dollars ?)
- the room (high ceiling, width room, seating position closer to the speakers than back wall, speakers 0.5 to 1m free from the back wall)
So I would say, yes, for me this level of performance is very much a concern.
You must decide for yourself, but as a general recommendation this kind of performance will just not do.
If I interpret this graph correctly, it says: you cannot play cd sources cleanly, let alone blu-ray, because the signal to noise and distortion is lower than 13 bits (77 db), while cd requires 16 bits and blu-ray would ideally get 24 bits (iirc 140db). Still, as anything higher than 115db sinad is beyond our hearing, 115db would be the level to aim for.
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The problem as I see it is that the Marantz slim line series is the only one one the market with such size and features. I have had Marantz which have been much worse than this and had to exchange them due to audible noise. Still no excuse, the have had this line long enough to be able to correct flaws.
Marc v E
Major Contributor
Btw regarding audibility: I was at a friend's house listening to the dbr-62's driven by the Marantz AV8805. When we connected and played via the Topping Dx7Pro we both heard a jump in clarity that was easily audible. If you'd ask me how much of a concern it was, I'd say that the features of the Marantz with eq and multichannel outweigh the benefits of the clarity, if you value multichannel more than stereo. But this is at a level that I would begin to doubt, especially if I would go for stereo speakers that are more resolving than the dbr-62's.
The maranz Av8805 has a sinad of 92 db. Lower than that I would consider a no-no category.
The maranz Av8805 has a sinad of 92 db. Lower than that I would consider a no-no category.
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The audibility of noise is very dependent of how you design the test and type of music. The HF drop in level may be more of a concern as well as the THD. I know Amir sets the bar high, because there is no reason to set it low with the technology today.I reason this way: the designers of the cd thought 96db signal would be sufficient. To play a file cleanly -as it is, without alteration- you need a greater sinad than the source material that it plays. Iirc that takes around 10 db headroom to have a drop of 0.5db sinad that you can measure at the output. So 106db sinad would be a minimum if it is your desire to transport the signal cleanly. I think that's where the ' high bar' of 115db sinad comes from. Then you'll know for sure the signal is unaltered.
If this is audible or not very much depends on:
- the listener (how old is he/she, what is the state of his/her hearing)
- the speakers (the highest sources of distortion; for example are you playing through genelec 8351's or average hifi speakers costing a few hundred dollars ?)
- the room (high ceiling, width room, seating position closer to the speakers than back wall, speakers 0.5 to 1m free from the back wall)
So I would say, yes, for me this level of performance is very much a concern.
You must decide for yourself, but as a general recommendation this kind of performance will just not do.
If I interpret this graph correctly, it says: you cannot play cd sources cleanly, let alone blu-ray, because the signal to noise and distortion is lower than 13 bits (77 db), while cd requires 16 bits and blu-ray would ideally get 24 bits (iirc 140db). Still, as anything higher than 115db sinad is beyond our hearing, 115db would be the level to aim for.
