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In Reply to: RE: Marantz PM 6006/7005 vs Yamaha S 501 posted by wjoehughes@gmail.com on January 15, 2017 at 08:19:56
For what it's worth, I own the Marantz PM8003 which is a couple generations old now. I -think- it was in the $1000 MSRP class (someone correct me if I'm wrong). I bought it new on closeout so I paid significantly less.We used it as our 2-channel integrated amp in the family room mainly for the TV with streaming music services and movies. Plain ole 2-channels. No sub, no surrounds. The Marantz was driving my Tannoy S8LR bookshelf speakers which are not very difficult to drive.
I always felt the sound from the Marantz was a little soft, possibly slightly veiled, with not a lot of top end. I confirmed this when I bought my used Ayre AX-7e integrated which is in my office setup. I compared the two and the Ayre was in a totally different league and much better than the Marantz. I chocked it up to the big price difference and Ayre's reputation in the audiophile community.
But wait, there's more to this story!
After accumulating more "AV stuff" like the Sony blu-ray player, AppleTV box, Amazon Fire TV, etc., I decided I needed a cheap AV receiver mainly for it's HDMI switching capabilities so I could route all of the devices into the AV receiver and have just one HDMI cable going up to the wall mounted TV. I didn't want to spend a lot and all I really needed was 2-channels. I pulled the trigger on a low-end Sony 5.2 ch AV receiver keeping my fingers crossed that it would sound half decent, in addition to offering the HDMI switching. The bonus would be the Sony's remote control compatibility with my Sony TV and the Sony blu-ray player.
The low-end Sony STRDH550 5.2 Channel AV receiver [I'm only using 2 channels] at $200 actually sounds more open and extended and overall just "better" than the $1000 Marantz integrated in this setup. I am baffled.
We did this "upgrade" only a couple months ago. Maybe I just don't like the Marantz sound or maybe this is typical for entry level Marantz and not their higher-end stuff ??? I don't know.
The $200 Sony STRDH550 for our TV setup [I paid $145 on sale around the holiday]
The Tannoy S8SL speakers. Not my photo, but just like my pair
The Marantz PM8003
Edits: 01/17/17 01/17/17Follow Ups:
I found the same thing with my PM8004. The top end would drive me nuts!!!
What I finally ended up doing was cranking up the treble 100% and the midrange up a few notches. Helped but didn't cure the problem. I'm baffled that they voiced this amp like this.
Look inside. They used all very high quality parts. SO whazz up?
Not all the parts are high quality inside the PM8004. There's a bunch of el cheapo NJM2068 IC opamps used as buffers and in the preamp circuits. The 2068 is a decent opamp with low noise but it is a dated design known for dull sound. There are plenty of better and faster opamps out there that Marantz should be using in a $1K amplifier. I hope the newer PM8006 has them.
Edits: 03/28/21 03/28/21 03/28/21
It's not a bad amp but I was surprised that I liked the inexpensive Sony better. I cranked up the treble on my Marantz too which helped but having to do that always bugged me. I thought it was me being picky and something I would just get used to. And then I compared it to a couple other amps. Hmm.
I'm going to do some surgery on it this summer.
I already redid all the caps in the signal path. So I'm going to start looking into different value caps. I'll let you know what happens.
I have a feeling the problem lies in one of the feed back loops.
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