Like I have always thought and said. Home theatre is garbage and if you want good sound from music or movies stick to 2 channels. Yes, for movies two. This philosophy has served me well over the years.
This bolded part of your post is garbage. What's the point of coming into a home theater review of a multichannel AVR to tell everyone you prefer two channel?
I'd put most any properly done (or my own 13 channel system ) up against your or any strict two channel system for enjoyment in modern movies/cinema any day of the week and twice on Sunday and bet a month's pay 10 out of 10 neutral auditioners would prefer the Dolby Atmos experience over a two channel experience for a modern movie title. Specifically, movies like Gravity, SpiderMan - Into the Spiderverse, Mad Maxx Fury Road, The Greatest Showman, etc -- movies which make fantastic use of Dolby Atmos. If you want to say you prefer just a pair of speakers for music, I wouldn't even touch that argument -- and that preference is perfectly fine! But when you specifically address cinema experience and say two channel is best? Get out of here.
Dolby Atmos, done correctly, is jaw droppingly good. This receiver caters to that market. I wouldn't go into a two channel thread and proclaim two channel is dead and you should only buy a 11 channel processor. Makes no sense, unless you wanted some conflict/challenge, and now unfortunately, we both then have detracted from the value of this thread.
On topic. I'm glad to see the Marantz fares well. And it is very interesting to see that the distortion measurements are now in line with the current generation Denon's, and that the suspected? HDAM distortion measured on previous Marantz has been eliminated. I wish we could uncover more on that. I've been window shopping for a new processor to replace my x6700h, looking at JBL SDP-55, Monoprice HTP-1, Anthem, Arcam, etc -- but really D&M have arguably the best value going right now in the processor arena. Very high value and performance in their respective market segments. I keep reading subjectively how the boutique brands have better sound quality, but Amirm has proven that's not true. I read over and over everywhere that the boutique brands have more bugs and user interface hiccups, and that's another place that D&M is very polished. Mobile phone interface through D&M HEOS is pretty much excellent. Cheaper, less bugs, stronger bench tests than much of their boutique competition.......Really the biggest advantage for boutique is a few extra channels. D&M, are difficult to knock.