Switching from Marantz to Onkyo TX-RZ50

[techsamurai]

I finally decided to give Dirac and new equipment a try. I bought a RZ50 last spring and I was too busy to set it up, then got another one and I'm finally setting it up.

The Onkyo is very easy to set up without Dirac and the On Screen Menus are amazing. My old Marantz is the SR8002 from 2008 and I also have a spare SR8001 from 2007.

The one thing the Onkyo has is cinematic impact - everything is like a movie theater and I'm saying that in a good but also a bad way. If I was new to home theater, I'd be happy with it because it's bombastic in even normal scenes.

I listened to a lot of stuff yesterday and I noticed that voices sound deeper (more echoy/boomy words my wife and daughter each used) making them less distinct. I've been watching a lot of Yellowstone the past week so I was very familiar with the voices through the Marantz. When I played it on the Onkyo, the first scene was a meeting with 2 women and 2 men (Costner) and the voices were very close together in pitch. The Marantz is ultra clear there even with lower streaming audio like DD - a woman's voice is very different than a man's voice.

In music, the Onkyo never grabbed me or my wife or my daughter. It seems to be doing things well and there's detail here and there but the overall presentation is almost robotic. In fact, both my wife and daughter told me to lower the volume while playing some of their favorite songs which is the clearest indication that it did NOT engage them and it wasn't that loud (-30db) The intro song to No Time To Die (with DTS, not Atmos) on the old Marantz left our jaws agape while I was really trying to like it with the Onkyo. The saxophone in Diana Krall's "Why Should I care?" didn't come to life. And it went on like that. Good but not great.

I'm going to set up Dirac next but can it possible fix the issues and get to the same level as the Marantz? I do have a UMIK1 and a microphone stand so I can take high level measurements.

 

[techsamurai]

By the way, I think I ran into Amir's issue during his testing of the RZ50 as we were listening to a song and I changed the volume by +15db but it didn't seem to go up much and seemed to hit a ceiling with 5db. I recycled power and it was able to go up much more. That's a massive bummer and perhaps reason enough to send it back because I didn't know when that happened but I knew enough that if I spin the volume knob up, I should expect a certain level of volume increase.

I have a 5.1 and I'm bi-amping my fronts so I'm putting the Onkyo under stress especially as the B&Ws drop to 3ohms and are power hungry. Surprisingly, the Onkyo wanted me to put my front speakers as Full Range and I switched between 50hz and Full Range to listen to Pure Direct (no sub). That might be what put the Onkyo into its permanent protective mode

 

[Miker 1102]

Did you ever resove this issue? I returned several of the Onkyo avrs because they didn't sound right. The music was clinical and the settings were lousy. I mean technically it's in my head i guess but I am still happy with my Denon set up for now.

 

[techsamurai]

Did you ever resove this issue? I returned several of the Onkyo avrs because they didn't sound right. The music was clinical and the settings were lousy. I mean technically it's in my head i guess but I am still happy with my Denon set up for now.

I returned it - I agree the Onkyo sounded clinical in music. I'm in the middle of some AVR nightmare

 

[ArturoKiwi]

Are you both sure that you are a real ASR reader?
By the measures both the avr are transparent. So, you couldn't ear differences, specially if you use external amp

 

[Miker 1102]

Are you both sure that you are a real ASR reader?
By the measures both the avr are transparent. So, you couldn't ear differences, specially if you use external amp

What does a real ASR reader mean? The amp should have been transparent and not sounded clinical but that wasn't the case with this brand for me. I used the house Curve wirh Dirac on both and Integra and Pioneer. It was very clean and there were no dips or anything but the music was lacking. Idk. I wouldn't dissuade anyone from buying the product based on my subjective hearing ..tho the Integra had a broken amp that had an audible hiss. I do not believe that any amp should sound different so I am sure it was in "my head" but I have to be happy with what I buy and was not with these products. I would take another cack at an R70 maybe as it has auro 3d and the ability for ART from Dirac.

 

[Rednaxela]

This thread needs in room measurements.

 

[Elvisbluelight]

What Receiver should I buy?

 

[voodooless]

What Receiver should I buy?

I don’t know…

 

[techsamurai]

What Receiver should I buy?

There are many choices and price points plus some good sales in the States and in Europe.

Do you have an AVR already or is this your first system? Also what are you looking to spend and how many speakers do you want? More is not necessarily better but numbers do appeal to some people

 

[NirreFirre]

Sadly, ASR seems to be attracting more and more of the brand- and "even my wife" crowd
Even though "science" is in its name, I guess if one lacks background with it, it's very hard to "get the glasses" ad hoc

 

[brettjv]

Sadly, ASR seems to be attracting more and more of the brand- and "even my wife" crowd
Even though "science" is in its name, I guess if one lacks background with it, it's very hard to "get the glasses" ad hoc

No matter how much 'science' one uses, everyone's brain's are different, which means different perceptions.

And just as important, the shape of everyone's ear canals, and their external ear shapes are different (both of which matter in terms of subjective assessment of 'good sound').

And then there's the rooms everyone is listening in, and even where they are in those rooms.

I consider myself VERY lucky that my lady and I seem to have very similar taste in 'sound', like she picks up on the same flaws in SQ as I do, and likes a similar overall tonal quality. But then we're alike in almost every other way as well