Marantz SR8015 Review (Home Theater AVR)

[MacCali]

You cannot bypass the HDAMs unless you do some modifications (that would void the warranty), they are an extra buffer stage positioned at the end of the preamp/dac signal chain, not filters. Given the very good bench test results of the SR8015 vs the other models such as the SR7015 or AV7705, why would you want to bypassing them anyway? It is the only Marantz AVR models that showed pre out SINAD >92 dB without using the preamp mode or disconnecting the internal FL/R channel power amps.



From what I could see, the only D+M AVRs that can disconnect individual channels is the AVR-X8500H/HA and the AVR-A110. All other models would let you disconnect the L and R but not C, unlessm as you know, you use set it to preamp mode that would disconnect all power amp channels. That is unless the SR8015 is another exception, but I doubt that.., have you actually tried to disconnect LR and C?

Yea just looked into that and you are correct. You’re probably right about those other amps as well

 

[Ucftechguru]

You cannot bypass the HDAMs unless you do some modifications (that would void the warranty), they are an extra buffer stage positioned at the end of the preamp/dac signal chain, not filters. Given the very good bench test results of the SR8015 vs the other models such as the SR7015 or AV7705, why would you want to bypassing them anyway? It is the only Marantz AVR models that showed pre out SINAD >92 dB without using the preamp mode or disconnecting the internal FL/R channel power amps.



From what I could see, the only D+M AVRs that can disconnect individual channels is the AVR-X8500H/HA and the AVR-A110. All other models would let you disconnect the L and R but not C, unlessm as you know, you use set it to preamp mode that would disconnect all power amp channels. That is unless the SR8015 is another exception, but I doubt that.., have you actually tried to disconnect LR and C?

I just purchased the SR8015, so I have not played with it yet. So, I don’t know which amps you can disconnect. I must have gotten it confused with the 8500.

I didn’t realize the SINAD was so good even with the amps connected. That makes me even more excited about the SR8015. I’ll just disable the L&R and leave all the other amps on and powering the surrounds and heights. Heck, I may even use the internal amps for the Center channel. I falsely assumed the SR8015 would have noticeably higher SINAD with the internal amps on. I guess that was based on the x3700 and SR6014 reviews I read. I used to have a Marantz SR6014 and switched to the Denon x3700. That seemed to be an upgrade to me as the 6014 sounded more vieled to me and the x3700 sounded more alive. I attributed that to the HDAMs so I was assuming the SR8015 would have the same issue. However, I’m glad to see / read that the bench test results for the 8015 were good even with the HDAMs. I’m not so worried about it now.

@peng, Thanks for all the info!!

 

[peng]

I just purchased the SR8015, so I have not played with it yet. So, I don’t know which amps you can disconnect. I must have gotten it confused with the 8500.

I didn’t realize the SINAD was so good even with the amps connected. That makes me even more excited about the SR8015. I’ll just disable the L&R and leave all the other amps on and powering the surrounds and heights. Heck, I may even use the internal amps for the Center channel. I falsely assumed the SR8015 would have noticeably higher SINAD with the internal amps on. I guess that was based on the x3700 and SR6014 reviews I read. I used to have a Marantz SR6014 and switched to the Denon x3700. That seemed to be an upgrade to me as the 6014 sounded more vieled to me and the x3700 sounded more alive. I attributed that to the HDAMs so I was assuming the SR8015 would have the same issue. However, I’m glad to see / read that the bench test results for the 8015 were good even with the HDAMs. I’m not so worried about it now.

@peng, Thanks for all the info!!

You got it, the SR8015 is D+M's newest AVR models so it might have some design change that helps minimize cross contamination between the preamp and power amp section. Other than that possibility, it also uses a different HDAM version that reportedly is used in some of their integrated amps. Enjoy!

 

[Ucftechguru]

You got it, the SR8015 is D+M's newest AVR models so it might have some design change that helps minimize cross contamination between the preamp and power amp section. Other than that possibility, it also uses a different HDAM version that reportedly is used in some of their integrated amps. Enjoy!

That’s great to hear! Their two-channel integrateds having been getting good reviews. The design changes Marantz implemented are probably due in no small part to ASR and Amir’s work in keeping companies honest about their performance. For many years we received new AVRs with just a few feature enhancements like the latest surround sound codecs or video improvements like 4K. Now we are seeing them up the SQ and internal performance because of ASR. Kudos to ASR and Denon/Marantz!

 

[Anterantz]

Hello those who have this unit have you noticed that the sound has improved with the passage of days or passing audyseey? I come from an arcam that I had to sell for economic problems and the sound of this sr8015 without being bad or is not close to arcam and I have had avr20 and avr31

 

[Ucftechguru]

I am not sure. Those who have had Arcam receivers could respond better on what the difference is. From my experience Denon receivers provide a much better ROI than Arcam, Yamaha and many others.

 

[Anterantz]

I am not sure. Those who have had Arcam receivers could respond better on what the difference is. From my experience Denon receivers provide a much better ROI than Arcam, Yamaha and many others.

My first denon was a 8500h great avr but it doesn't sound better than arcam no matter how much sinad and thd it has better than arcam and believe me I'm the first one who found it hard to recognize that arcam sounds better than most japanese avr's!


I went to marantz because I didn't like the 8500h in stereo and the 8015 is a bit more musical and it was newer than the 8500h which is already discontinued.

 

[Deleted member 50971]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Marantz SR8015 11.2 channel 8K AV Receiver (AVR). It was kindly purchased by a member and drop shipped to me. It costs US $3,299 and is the flagship unit from Marantz.

All Marantz AVRs look the same and the 8015 is no exception:
View attachment 134218

I am not a fan of the port hole display from looks or functionality. It does less and looks worse in my opinion than a wide rectangular display on its sister Denon products. Typical of these products, despite the high cost, the volume control is stiff and has horrible feel. Fortunately you will be using the remote in this application but still, can't this be made a bit better feeling? Surely in a showroom people play with this control.

As is common with Denon and Marantz products, the SR8015 runs hot, really hot. The left row of amps really cooks with the case almost too hot to touch. There are two fans on each side under the row of heatsinks which is nice but they don't come on to keep the unit more comfortable in typical use.

The back panel tries to give the look of high-fidelity with gold color:

View attachment 134220

Can't believe in this day and age they still insist on including component and composite video inputs. I know in retail more connectors seems to be associated with higher value but really, let's leave them behind and make it easier to find what is what in the back.

I have a recent policy of running my measurements by D&M for review but this unit has been tested by Audioholics and since my results are inline with that (but with very different conclusion), I did not do so.

Marantz SR8015 DAC Measurements
As usual we start our AVR testing by creating as straight of a pass through we can from digital input to analog output. Let's start with HDMI and pre-out then:

View attachment 134221

Ah, it is a relief to test the first Marantz AVR that doesn't destroy performance in the name of subjective listening tests they perform. While SINAD could be better still, it is by far the best I have measured in any Marantz AVR/processor:

View attachment 134222

While I tested the unit in pre-amp and pure mode, neither was necessary. It seems that Marantz has solved the problem of amplifier clipping and dragging the DAC performance down at the source (likely an independent power supply). My interface to HDMI in my analyzer software can cause problems of its own so I like to switch to using another digital input that doesn't have this problem, namely, Coax. So let's measure that:

View attachment 134223

Strange to lose 3 dB performance here but since most people use HDMI anyway, I guess this is OK.

Edit: forgot to post the distortion+noise versus output level:

View attachment 134283

Dynamic range is in line with what we measure in AV products:

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Spectrum in our jitter test is not clean but fortunately it is not an audible problem:

View attachment 134299
IMD distortion test is good, again for an AV product:

View attachment 134227

Linearity test shows lack of accuracy starting at 19 bits which is below what I like to see but is in keeping with the rest of the measurements:

View attachment 134228

Multitone test shows what we have seen with the rest of our tests except rising noise floor in lower frequencies:
View attachment 134229

Sadly now we get to a poor decision on Marantz's part yet again with a super slow DAC reconstruction filter:

View attachment 134230

This will generate ultrasonic noise (mirror image of your music) which we can see impacting the THD+N versus frequency which has high bandwidth to include them:

View attachment 134232

This is due to mistaken belief that time domain ringing at higher frequencies matter but there is no listening tests to prove such. Even if Marantz believes in this approach, they should provide a menu option to select one of the standard DAC filters for those of us who like to have the correct approach here.

Marantz SR8015 Amplifier Measurements
Let's start with testing the amplifier using analog input (pure mode) and testing the Front Left and Right channels:
View attachment 134233

We see the result of the competent amplifier design from D&M with above average performance:

View attachment 134234

Sadly when I switched to Coax input performance dropped a few notches:

View attachment 134235

I can't explain this as with SINAD of 98, this conversion should have been transparent. The problem seems to be in more power supply noise appearing with digital input. Anyway, for proper comparison to stand-alone amplifiers, I will continue my testing with analog input.

Dynamic range is good for an AV product:
View attachment 134236

Frequency response is flat in audible band and quite extended:

View attachment 134238

Crosstalk is decent:
View attachment 134239

There is plenty of power to be had in 2-channel mode:

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View attachment 134243

Sweeping at different frequencies shows the predictable performance we expect from class AB amplifiers:

View attachment 134244

I wrote on the slide that distortion dominated but thinking now, this may be power supply ripple which rises with power causing the lines to be horizontal rather than dropping down (which they would if the noise was residual).

All the tests so far have been in 2-channel mode. Let's now measure power from 1 to 5 channels to see how it scales:

View attachment 134245

What was D&M's promise on 5 channel performance? 70%? If so, we are missing that at 61%. Maybe they measure it differently.

EDIT: the comparison is against 2 channel mode which it achieves.

Conclusions
I was pleased to see Marantz remove many of the compromises they had included in their products in the past in the name of "better sound." The only one left seems to be the slow filter which is the easiest to fix: give us a selectable DAC filter like many budget DACs do. Otherwise, this Marantz AVR performs similarly to its Denon counterparts from audio performance point of view with is a major step forward.

I can recommend the Marantz SR8015 AVR.

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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Appreciate any donations using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

Thanks for the review Amir. Nice to see that Marantz can make some good measuring gear if they want to, and I’m hoping that sound united is listening to it’s base. We want better measuring/performing gear.

 

[Rockman2]

I read somewhere that Marantz has redesigned the HDAM's in the 8015 when they fixed the 4K120 bug. Anyone know if this is true? Amir may be able to ask someone at Marantz.

 

[bigguyca]

I read somewhere that Marantz has redesigned the HDAM's in the 8015 when they fixed the 4K120 bug. Anyone know if this is true? Amir may be able to ask someone at Marantz.

Marantz implemented an improved version of the SA2 HDAM's with current sources when the SR8015 was initially introduced. This, and improved circuitry following the AKM DAC IC's that drove the opamps into Class A operation, resulted in the improved measurements.

When the SR8015 was updated with one good HDMI 2.1 input the very good AKM DAC IC's were replaced with much lower performing TI DAC IC's. Based on performance measurements of other Denon/Marantz AVR's with the TI DAC IC's, the measured preamp performance of the current SR8015 likely would be significantly worse.

My guess is that the next SR80XX will return to AKM DAC IC's along with the next Denon X6X00H and Marantz AV770X. AKM DAC IC's are once again available in quantity including the DAC IC used previously in the original SR8015 and the X6700H. Hopefully the next AV770X will also include the AKM DAC IC's and the improved HDAM SA2's with current sources used in the SR8015.

 

[MacCali]

I read somewhere that Marantz has redesigned the HDAM's in the 8015 when they fixed the 4K120 bug. Anyone know if this is true? Amir may be able to ask someone at Marantz.

All the measurements are grand, but to be honest when you add more speakers it’s much harder to differentiate. Pointed out by Floyd Toole’s research and testing.

If you are coming from something really bad overall an upgrade might be worth it. Otherwise it’s not much more than interface and modifications that come with spending more.

Also depends on your priorities, if you watch a lot of movies it maybe worth it. However don’t expect a night and day difference is all I am saying. Volume or audible wise

 

[ash1980]

Is there a review for SR 6015? I'm contemplating between 6015 and 8015. I have 936 towers, CC900 as center and CC906 bookshelves as rear speakers.

 

[Brambo67]

All the measurements are grand, but to be honest when you add more speakers it’s much harder to differentiate. Pointed out by Floyd Toole’s research and testing.

If you are coming from something really bad overall an upgrade might be worth it. Otherwise it’s not much more than interface and modifications that come with spending more.

Also depends on your priorities, if you watch a lot of movies it maybe worth it. However don’t expect a night and day difference is all I am saying. Volume or audible wise

This is an ongoing discussion in this forum. Lot''s of ASR-adepts belief it's against many laws to use 'degraded' DAC's and/or other chips. This because per item (DAC, ADC etc.) the price difference mostly is no more than a few euro- or dollar cents. What they tend to forget is not many AVR producers are surviving so focus always will be on optimizing cost and implement chips that can do the job against acceptable level. For an average AVR buyer it really doesn't matter whether you DAC is AKM, ESS or TI as long a performance is better than potential audible distortion can do wrong. You can still buy state-of-the-art DAC performance if you buy very expensive machinery. No one can convince me they can hear the difference between Denon/Marantz AVR with AKM compared to TI PCM DAC when playing 7.1.4 Atmos soundtracks. But of course anyone could wait for better DAC performance or pay premium for top end AVR's so the Atmos sound effects perceivably sound better while watching an action movie. For stereo buy a second hand Topping and plug into your analog port and happily run into the limits of the AVR internal amp's of the external power amp.

 

[MacCali]

This is an ongoing discussion in this forum. Lot''s of ASR-adepts belief it's against many laws to use 'degraded' DAC's and/or other chips. This because per item (DAC, ADC etc.) the price difference mostly is no more than a few euro- or dollar cents. What they tend to forget is not many AVR producers are surviving so focus always will be on optimizing cost and implement chips that can do the job against acceptable level. For an average AVR buyer it really doesn't matter whether you DAC is AKM, ESS or TI as long a performance is better than potential audible distortion can do wrong. You can still buy state-of-the-art DAC performance if you buy very expensive machinery. No one can convince me they can hear the difference between Denon/Marantz AVR with AKM compared to TI PCM DAC when playing 7.1.4 Atmos soundtracks. But of course anyone could wait for better DAC performance or pay premium for top end AVR's so the Atmos sound effects perceivably sound better while watching an action movie. For stereo buy a second hand Topping and plug into your analog port and happily run into the limits of the AVR internal amp's of the external power amp.

I totally agree with your statement, but coming from never having a home theater or any home audio for that matter. I started with the 7013 because that’s all I could afford.

To be honest the 7013 is great, but I will say my room is small and I’m not running more than 7 channels. First I got a BDP which was strictly for audio enhancement. I saw a great jump in immersion and lossless playback with true HD. I then went to external amplification and using my 7013 as a processor to get better sinad.

Edit: point being the 7015 measured by Amir is basically mid grade or upper mid grade at best to our standards at ~75db sinad while using internal amps

Most recently I bought the AVM70 and I will say I feel it’s better with 0 tinkering on all the extra settings and available options. I would say the jump is far less noticeable. So you maybe able to do things prior to jumping into a pricey product which can greatly improve your experience.

Also cannot even say what I feel is even accurate without a legit blind test. So this really means the performance can be indistinguishable, better, or worse.

Personally all I could say is most likely the AVM70 is processing the information better, clearly it’s far more expensive and not that price makes better performance. But one would assume they put some effort into that which is my actual perception of it’s better than the 7013, again purely a hypothesis since the 7013 as processor is only a few db worse

Also pointed out by one of the users on here, the 7013 shows a touch better performance in the rise of sinad. But a poorly implemented preout suffers with peak performance of only 0.7 vrms and my amps all hit thx reference at 1v

 

[MacCali]

Is there a review for SR 6015? I'm contemplating between 6015 and 8015. I have 936 towers, CC900 as center and CC906 bookshelves as rear speakers.

Prices are really high now, it’s difficult to figure out where you want to be. I would search for an authorized retailer selling an open box of whatever you want to buy.

I bought my 7013 right when the 7015 was released and I got at least 33% off the msrp which went from 21 2200 to 1599 as discontinued product. *~33% based on 1599

 

[DylanMountain]

I believe I've settled on the 8015 for my next HTR. Replacing a 10 year old Pioneer elite. I'm thinking about replacing my Pinnacle speakers with JBL HDI series. Specifically the HDI3600, the center the HDI4500 and the studio 610 surrounds. Wondering if anyone on here has an opinion of that combo?

 

[Rockman2]

I believe I've settled on the 8015 for my next HTR. Replacing a 10 year old Pioneer elite. I'm thinking about replacing my Pinnacle speakers with JBL HDI series. Specifically the HDI3600, the center the HDI4500 and the studio 610 surrounds. Wondering if anyone on here has an opinion of that combo?

They have also put TI DAC's in the revamped 8015 when they fixed the 4K 120 issue. So It will have the lower sinad. I liked mine and don't know if you would hear the difference in the DAC's

 

[techsamurai]

All the tests so far have been in 2-channel mode. Let's now measure power from 1 to 5 channels to see how it scales:

View attachment 134245

What was D&M's promise on 5 channel performance? 70%? If so, we are missing that at 61%. Maybe they measure it differently.

Do all AVR reviews include "number of channels driven"? I've read many reviews here but this is the only one I've noticed that has them. I may be blind

SoundAndVision would post this analysis as the first benchmark in their lab measurements and Audioholics also included them.

 

[peng]

Do all AVR reviews include "number of channels driven"? I've read many reviews here but this is the only one I've noticed that has them. I may be blind

SoundAndVision would post this analysis as the first benchmark in their lab measurements and Audioholics also included them.

By the way, be aware that Denon/Marantz's 70% rule of thumb is based on 70% of their rated output into 8 ohms. Amir's showed less, but it wasn't calculated per D+M, I thought he did clarify that in his subsequent posts. Remember, an amp's rated output depends on the THD value and the frequency range within which it is measured. So if you pick a higher THD value, the rated output will be higher than if you pick a Lower THD. Example, an amp could be rated 100 W at 1% THD, or 80W at 0.1% 20-20,000 Hz, or 110 W at 1%, at 1 kHz. So always compare on the same basis.

 

[techsamurai]

By the way, be aware that Denon/Marantz's 70% rule of thumb is based on 70% of their rated output into 8 ohms. Amir's showed less, but it wasn't calculated per D+M, I thought he did clarify that in his subsequent posts. Remember, an amp's rated output depends on the THD value and the frequency range within which it is measured. So if you pick a higher THD value, the rated output will be higher than if you pick a Lower THD. Example, an amp could be rated 100 W at 1% THD, or 80W at 0.1% 20-20,000 Hz, or 110 W at 1%, at 1 kHz. So always compare on the same basis.

Sorry I wasn't questioning the results or the manner in which they were calculated but I appreciate the explanation nonetheless I was simply inquiring into why other reviews on this forum don't seem to include this measurement or am I simply missing it.

Essentially, if I look at the TX-RZ50, Cinema 50, 3800H reviews will I find this "number of channels driven" measurement?