This is a review and detailed measurements of the Marantz SR6014 Audio/Video Receiver. It was purchased new and kindly drop shipped to me. It costs US $1,500.
The SR6014 looks just like all the other Marantz AV products:
I must say, as iconic as the round display is, coming from testing the Denon AVR-X4700H, it was a big step backward. It is so small and shows so little information. It is clearly form over function.
The back panel has some legacy and in my opinion useless inputs:
In use, I was pleasantly surprised how robust the amplification in this AVR is. No matter how much I pushed it into clipping during testing, it kept going with out shutting down. Other AVRs have very delicate amplifiers that shut down if you just look at them wrong.
Typical of recent Denon and Marantz (part of same family) AVRs I have tested, the right side gets warm even if you are not using the amplifier. So you better allow it to get plenty of air flow if you want it to live long.
Note: as a courtesy I submitted my measurements to Sound United/Denon-Marnatz engineering and they have verified that they measure the same.
AVR DAC Audio Measurements
Testing of a recent Denon AVR-X4700H showed that if you feed it stereo content using multichannel HDMI, and only configure two channels (i.e. using the AVR as a stereo system), noise floor substantially goes up. Sorry to report the same issue exist with the Marantz SR6104. To get full performance, you must configure all 8 output speakers as being there and give up channel mapping/mixing. That is how I tested the unit. Denon & Marantz engineering is investigating the issue here and hopefully we will get a fix for it. Therefore for all of these tests, I configure the unit as being in 7.1 mode even though my source content is strictly stereo.
A common problem with many AVRs is that even if you use the preamp out, the internal amplifier stays active and should it reach its maximum power, it will clip and drag down the delicate DAC circuits down with it. Fortunately the Marantz SR6104 similar to Denon AVRs that we have tested allows the two front channels to be decoupled from their amplifier. All the testing is performed this way unless noted otherwise.
Here is our dashboard with 7.1 speaker configuration. Notice the noise floor at -130 dB (this is an artificial number but let's stay with it):
Setting the speaker config to just 2 channels, raises the noise floor by almost 20 dB to -110:
Unlike Denon AVR-X4700 though, our SINAD which incorporates distortion and noise does not improve at all. Reason? Distortion is so high that it is dwarfing noise. Notice the third harmonic peaking up to -80 dB. This is whopping 16 dB higher than noise floor of CD format!
I believe this is due to an extra buffer stage that Marantz team adds to the basic platform used in Denon products. As far as I can tell, it is just a distortion factory with no added value. You can see the comparison to similar Denon AVR-X3600H:
The Denon AVR-X3600 is all the way to the left, achieving the best performance I have measured in an AVR. The Marantz is dead in the middle of the "red" (poor) region. Considering that these are sister products with nearly identical functionality, you can appreciate my disappointment in this regression in the name of value add in Marantz.
Among all products with a DAC, the Marantz falls so far behind the rest that it is not funny:
There are probably 200+ DACs I have tested with better performance!
In case you are wondering if the 6014 is unhappy due to me asking it to produce 2 volts, this is how it performs with other output levels:
Best performance is achieved at just 0.7 volts. Hard to find a powerful external amplifier that is happy with just that much output.
Shutting down the internal amplifier does you some good if you need more than 1.45 volts. Below that it doesn't seem to matter (other than the amp using up power and shortening its life and other bits around it).
Here is our dynamic range test, showing the sharp contrast between configuring the AVR for 2 channels versus 7.1 with identical input:
So much performance is left on the table when you are not operating with all 8 channels. This by the way applies to other Denon and Marantz products as noted earlier.
In our intermodulation test versus level, performance is not too bad until we get to -13 dB or so and then distortion shoots way up, finishing where a phone dongle ends!
Here is our 32 test tones to simulate "music:"
Linearity is less than ideal although it clears the hurdle for 16 bit music:
Jitter and spurious tones are typical of other AVRs and Denon products:
I thought I was done at this point with any bad news but more was waiting for me in the form of the DAC reconstruction filter:
An ideal filter would sharply go down where the vertical red line is. The filter used in this AVR basically ignores the sampling theorem and has the slowest filter you can imagine. Now, the problems it creates are in ultrasonic range so maybe we can ignore that. What we can't ignore is that it is not flat in the audible band either:
That's right. It starts to roll off the high frequencies at just 10 kHz! By 20 kHz, you are down nearly 3 dB. It is kind of sacrilegious in solid state electronics to not have flat response in audible band. To go and on purpose butcher the bandwidth makes no sense to me.
Our last test is noise and distortion relative to frequency:
The red line shows what happens when you have such a slow filter. This is just bad engineering. I know there is a fad going on that "slow" reconstruction filters are better but that is an audiophile myth. To sacrifice real performance for that, and not allow an option for the user to override with a better filter makes no sense to me.
Streaming Audio Performance
I ran a couple of tests, streaming 24-bit content using the HEOS app starting with our Dashboard:
Note that above is in pure direct. I did not have time to investigate it but it seemed like in "Auto" mode SINAD would drop to just 59! In other modes Pure Direct does nothing in this regard.
Jitter test shows similar performance to Coax input (and hence a bit better than HDMI though not in any audible way):
AVR Amplifier Measurements
CD input into the SR6014 shows once again that there is no digitization, giving us a more direct path into the amplifier:
So I opted to use this input for my tests as it makes comparison with straight amplifiers easier.
Here is our dashboard:
Notice that I adjusted the volume control for 29 dB gain which is the "THX standard." At reference level, it has a gain of 26 dB which results in negligible improvement in performance (SINAD goes from 83 to 84).
Here is how the 6014 ranks among other AVRs and all amplifiers:
So above average.
Dynamic range at 5 watts and full power are such:
These are not very good numbers.
Crosstalk is audibly OK but not technically given the higher amount in low frequencies:
Power into 4 ohm looks like this:
If we allow the distortion to rise to 1%, this is the power we get for continuous versus peak:
That is nearly 500 watts peak out of two channels. Not bad at all!
Varying the frequency gives us the usual variations in class AB products (good):
Note however that you loose good bit of power at 20 Hz where you need it most. But this is typical.
In 8 ohm we get:
Conclusions
Marantz takes one of the best AVRs we have tested, the Denon AVR-X3600H and reduces its performance into mediocrity in many areas. It seems that they are following audiophile fads, ignoring good engineering and proper audio research and science. I understand the need for differentiation but for heaven's sake, please don't sacrifice performance for it. Make the chassis out of gold or something. But please leave the active circuits alone. You have a good platform. Please don't ruin it this way.
Needless to say, I can't recommend the Marantz SR6014.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
I am multitasking. As I am typing this, I am measuring another speaker. Once this review is done, then I have to work on that one past midnight. Feel sorry for me? Good. Please ready in your paypal pocket and donate what you can using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
The SR6014 looks just like all the other Marantz AV products:
I must say, as iconic as the round display is, coming from testing the Denon AVR-X4700H, it was a big step backward. It is so small and shows so little information. It is clearly form over function.
The back panel has some legacy and in my opinion useless inputs:
In use, I was pleasantly surprised how robust the amplification in this AVR is. No matter how much I pushed it into clipping during testing, it kept going with out shutting down. Other AVRs have very delicate amplifiers that shut down if you just look at them wrong.
Typical of recent Denon and Marantz (part of same family) AVRs I have tested, the right side gets warm even if you are not using the amplifier. So you better allow it to get plenty of air flow if you want it to live long.
Note: as a courtesy I submitted my measurements to Sound United/Denon-Marnatz engineering and they have verified that they measure the same.
AVR DAC Audio Measurements
Testing of a recent Denon AVR-X4700H showed that if you feed it stereo content using multichannel HDMI, and only configure two channels (i.e. using the AVR as a stereo system), noise floor substantially goes up. Sorry to report the same issue exist with the Marantz SR6104. To get full performance, you must configure all 8 output speakers as being there and give up channel mapping/mixing. That is how I tested the unit. Denon & Marantz engineering is investigating the issue here and hopefully we will get a fix for it. Therefore for all of these tests, I configure the unit as being in 7.1 mode even though my source content is strictly stereo.
A common problem with many AVRs is that even if you use the preamp out, the internal amplifier stays active and should it reach its maximum power, it will clip and drag down the delicate DAC circuits down with it. Fortunately the Marantz SR6104 similar to Denon AVRs that we have tested allows the two front channels to be decoupled from their amplifier. All the testing is performed this way unless noted otherwise.
Here is our dashboard with 7.1 speaker configuration. Notice the noise floor at -130 dB (this is an artificial number but let's stay with it):
Setting the speaker config to just 2 channels, raises the noise floor by almost 20 dB to -110:
Unlike Denon AVR-X4700 though, our SINAD which incorporates distortion and noise does not improve at all. Reason? Distortion is so high that it is dwarfing noise. Notice the third harmonic peaking up to -80 dB. This is whopping 16 dB higher than noise floor of CD format!
I believe this is due to an extra buffer stage that Marantz team adds to the basic platform used in Denon products. As far as I can tell, it is just a distortion factory with no added value. You can see the comparison to similar Denon AVR-X3600H:
The Denon AVR-X3600 is all the way to the left, achieving the best performance I have measured in an AVR. The Marantz is dead in the middle of the "red" (poor) region. Considering that these are sister products with nearly identical functionality, you can appreciate my disappointment in this regression in the name of value add in Marantz.
Among all products with a DAC, the Marantz falls so far behind the rest that it is not funny:
There are probably 200+ DACs I have tested with better performance!
In case you are wondering if the 6014 is unhappy due to me asking it to produce 2 volts, this is how it performs with other output levels:
Best performance is achieved at just 0.7 volts. Hard to find a powerful external amplifier that is happy with just that much output.
Shutting down the internal amplifier does you some good if you need more than 1.45 volts. Below that it doesn't seem to matter (other than the amp using up power and shortening its life and other bits around it).
Here is our dynamic range test, showing the sharp contrast between configuring the AVR for 2 channels versus 7.1 with identical input:
So much performance is left on the table when you are not operating with all 8 channels. This by the way applies to other Denon and Marantz products as noted earlier.
In our intermodulation test versus level, performance is not too bad until we get to -13 dB or so and then distortion shoots way up, finishing where a phone dongle ends!
Here is our 32 test tones to simulate "music:"
Linearity is less than ideal although it clears the hurdle for 16 bit music:
Jitter and spurious tones are typical of other AVRs and Denon products:
I thought I was done at this point with any bad news but more was waiting for me in the form of the DAC reconstruction filter:
An ideal filter would sharply go down where the vertical red line is. The filter used in this AVR basically ignores the sampling theorem and has the slowest filter you can imagine. Now, the problems it creates are in ultrasonic range so maybe we can ignore that. What we can't ignore is that it is not flat in the audible band either:
That's right. It starts to roll off the high frequencies at just 10 kHz! By 20 kHz, you are down nearly 3 dB. It is kind of sacrilegious in solid state electronics to not have flat response in audible band. To go and on purpose butcher the bandwidth makes no sense to me.
Our last test is noise and distortion relative to frequency:
The red line shows what happens when you have such a slow filter. This is just bad engineering. I know there is a fad going on that "slow" reconstruction filters are better but that is an audiophile myth. To sacrifice real performance for that, and not allow an option for the user to override with a better filter makes no sense to me.
Streaming Audio Performance
I ran a couple of tests, streaming 24-bit content using the HEOS app starting with our Dashboard:
Note that above is in pure direct. I did not have time to investigate it but it seemed like in "Auto" mode SINAD would drop to just 59! In other modes Pure Direct does nothing in this regard.
Jitter test shows similar performance to Coax input (and hence a bit better than HDMI though not in any audible way):
AVR Amplifier Measurements
CD input into the SR6014 shows once again that there is no digitization, giving us a more direct path into the amplifier:
So I opted to use this input for my tests as it makes comparison with straight amplifiers easier.
Here is our dashboard:
Notice that I adjusted the volume control for 29 dB gain which is the "THX standard." At reference level, it has a gain of 26 dB which results in negligible improvement in performance (SINAD goes from 83 to 84).
Here is how the 6014 ranks among other AVRs and all amplifiers:
So above average.
Dynamic range at 5 watts and full power are such:
These are not very good numbers.
Crosstalk is audibly OK but not technically given the higher amount in low frequencies:
Power into 4 ohm looks like this:
If we allow the distortion to rise to 1%, this is the power we get for continuous versus peak:
That is nearly 500 watts peak out of two channels. Not bad at all!
Varying the frequency gives us the usual variations in class AB products (good):
Note however that you loose good bit of power at 20 Hz where you need it most. But this is typical.
In 8 ohm we get:
Conclusions
Marantz takes one of the best AVRs we have tested, the Denon AVR-X3600H and reduces its performance into mediocrity in many areas. It seems that they are following audiophile fads, ignoring good engineering and proper audio research and science. I understand the need for differentiation but for heaven's sake, please don't sacrifice performance for it. Make the chassis out of gold or something. But please leave the active circuits alone. You have a good platform. Please don't ruin it this way.
Needless to say, I can't recommend the Marantz SR6014.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
I am multitasking. As I am typing this, I am measuring another speaker. Once this review is done, then I have to work on that one past midnight. Feel sorry for me? Good. Please ready in your paypal pocket and donate what you can using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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