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In Reply to: RE: Marantz 8802a vs.Emotiva XMC-1 5.1 analog (Kal Rubinson?)? posted by Jim Pearce on December 17, 2016 at 08:15:59
Marantz 8801 owner here
I've owned Marantz SACD and universal players before. The 8801 does have some of that Marantz house sound, but it's not overtly colored. Laid back is the term I would use. With some music I would prefer a more forward, attacking presentation. Other times it's just right.
Selecting the analog input and pure direct modes provides the most transparency. When fed an HDMI input from my Oppo, transparency drops a notch compared to analog via my Linn DS player. For example, when comparing a SACD or DVD-A rip played by the Linn vs. playing the disc in the Oppo and using HDMI to the Marantz, the former is better in most regards.
Follow Ups:
My understanding is that the 8802a is more transparent due to the elimination of op amps in favour of HDAMs. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Marantz does a DSD to PCM conversion on a DSD bitstream. I'm thinking in terms of playing the Oppo bdp-95 (later 205) through the analog outs - Pure Direct in Marantz's parlance. For some reason it sounds as good in my system as my Esoteric DV-50 did, and much better than the SA-14 did.
The 8801 had a full bank of HDAMs too, an older iteration though. I believe the 8801 and 8802 share the same basic design but the analog path has been improved with parts upgrades trickled down from the PM-11. I've read conflicting information about whether DSD is converted to PCM in pure direct mode, but it certainly is converted to PCM in other modes because the bass management and Audyssey work in PCM.
With the 8801, I am confident you can get better sound using analog outs of Oppo 95/105/205 with the Marantz in pure direct mode vs. using the DACs in the Marantz. I suspect the same may be true with the 8802. If you don't need all the bells & whistles the Marantz offers, you might look for a used Bryston SP3. There's a couple of them on Audiogon right now, asking 4450 USD and 4900 USD.
It's actually a good deal, nice looking, well-built and they have a service center about 20 minutes drive from where I live. I might just go 5.1.2 Atmos for fun, and the 4K upscaling might come in handy depending on the job the Oppo bdp-205 does - and my new LG 55" B6 oled TV which is going in the first week of January.
If I went without the bells and whistles there's an open box Anthem AVM 50v available locally for $5500 CDN that would reduce my sonic risk to near zero. Then again, I could stay with what I have because my AVM 20 is in perfect condition - I could even add the DDRC-88A at $999 U.S. to bring it up to speed with Dirac live for movies (although a pair of .5 m. Cardas Neutral Reference and four Linn Analog interconnects to wire it would cost a few hundred more). But my tendency is to keep the analog path as short as possible, and movies sound pretty good with what I've got.
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