Marantz vs. Arcam

I got to compare their top AVRs about five years ago with B&W 805D3s with my reference recordings, and the Marantz was warmer and fuller sounding but with less treble detail and air while the Arcam was overall more clear and neutral so they were quite different sounding. My favorite by a good margin, and much to my surprise, was the Yamaha Aventage that had the neutrality of the Arcam but was even more transparent and produced a much clearer and more dimensional 3D soundstage with more distinct imaging — like the proverbial veil was lifted, and in that way it reminded me much more of my significantly pricier separates at home. The additional benefit of Yamaha is they have a better reliability track record than the others as well. Anyway, that’s what I heard five years ago FWIW.

Thanks, @soix - As you may have read, I’m trying to avoid the really big mistakes I made before with Onkyo and Emotiva.  Also, the latest offerings from Arcam seem pretty good expecially since I plan to use external amps or powered speakers.  A $2k all in one may very well be my next purchase.

I agree with your marantz & arcam comparison. The Yamaha is great too with very good eq possibilities. Also the Yamaha i'm told has better reliability as told by my installer. 
 I'm an Arcam user & but recently i heard the anthem receiver. It sounds much better  to me , better resolution , bass & coherence ,
Should be certainly considered .

All the best 

@neoshah Thanks. I have a modern Anthem and the EQ limitations is making me look elsewhere. In particular, I want to hand craft what the EQ does, and the Anthem has no such feature.  The more advanced Marantz units and DirecLive should give me full manual parametric EQ capabilities.

@erik_squires Hey! Anthem does have a room correction software. Although not sure how it compares to Dirac in the Arcam.

Guess best to stick with what ones comfortable with. 

Cheers 

@neoshah I’m not pleased with the EQ settings Anthem’s room correction makes. Unfortunately I didn’t pay more attention to the details. While it has many configuration options it does not let me have what I most desire: Hand crafted parametric EQ settings. As a result I have a pair of miniDSP units behind my Anthem MRX receiver, and have completely disabled the Anthem Room Correction.

I believe that DiracLive lets me hand adjust EQ settings without having to rely on it’s room correction if I wish. I believe the advanced Audyssey EQ in some Marantz units also let me do this. I'm also shifting more towards powered DSP capable speakers as well.

I’m looking to simplify my listening experience which has shifted greatly from music to movies over the past couple of years. One thing I look forward to in doing so is reducing the number of separate devices I have right now from 6 (HT receiver, 2 channel integrated, DAC, streamer, 2x miniDSP) to 1.

@erik_squires ok.

I didn't personally have to bother with the setup, so no clue on these details.

Just sharing what I heard. 

Cheers 

I have a Marantz Cinema 60 and normally I use HT bypass on my preamp for music. I tried the Cinema 60 for the first time with music (2ch) the other day as a preamp (Mc462 as amp) with no room correction. It honestly seemed fine. I did feel like the soundstage was an hair less but not positive.the channel separation on my 60 is not as good as the AV10.  
 

If I walked out of the room and back in I am not sure I could pass a blind test. It has made me wonder if an AV10 could work as an all in one unit for me. I like to manage my subs and have been thinking about doing this differently lately.

so I think if you are not super pick an AVR could work. A few times I bought other brands instead of Marantz and always regretted it and went back to Marantz.

the “Marantz” sound is in the DAC filter. It starts rolling off at 12k and is down 0.5db at 15k and 2.5db at 20k. On the higher end models you can turn the filter off and choose “filter #2” which is totally flat.

Measurements of the AV10 here.

Thanks @james633 for your input.

The more time I have to think about it I am leaning towards a Marantz processor.  My center is active and I'm about to convert my L and R to the same kind of configuration, leaving me with only the surround speakers to have to power, and I already have amps for those.

I too have been thinking about using powered surrounds and height speakers (708p all around with my 4367s as mains)…. Only money right lol. 
 

For what it is worth I have owned integra, onkyo, denon, Sony, and Marantz. below is are short comments on what I thought of them. I don’t remember the models but these are all mid/low priced models around $1000. 
 

Integra: worst sounding electronic I have ever heard. Thin and lacked dynamics. worked fine. Was easy enough to use. 
 

Denon: sounded fine in pure direct but with the processor on it was muted and dull… like throwing a heavy blanket over the speaker. 
 

Sony: sound was meh but fine I guess. Really hard to use and setup. I hated the interface and gave it away to my father in law. 
 

marantz: sounds pretty good for music. Kind of like mcintosh in a way. Not amazing at anything but solid with a full sound. not sure it would be good enough for the purist 2ch crowd but better than you might expect. By form somewhere you can return it if you are not sure. 
 

I can’t tell the difference between pure direct or with the many EQ engaged (I do not use the room correction). Both sound totally fine. For home theater it is really great. I use it to power my 4 rears (no my mains) and it can be played very loud (I mean loud) and never break up or sound harsh. Setup is super easy with simple and easier to use on screen display. it is probably the only brand I will buy for HT going forward. McIntosh HT processor board are made my Marantz. McIntosh then adds their own input and output stage. 
 

I hear anthem is just as good while maybe night quite as stable in its firmware. 

Just went through this, my old Marantz SR7010 has a short on the right channel terminal. It would shut off, and not turn on at random. Tried to pull it apart to fix the plug, but would have to disassemble the entire receiver to get at it. Decided to just get a new receiver (also could not find a local place to work on a HT receiver) 

My setup is a 7.4.2, that limits what I can get to the higher end stuff. Finding anything in any local stores was difficult. Went to a couple local HT stores to play with what they had. After listening and playing with everything I kelp going back to Marantz. They have a good interface, good sound, and good price point. I did like a few others that were in the $8k range, but I wanted to keep it under $4k. No one had anything I wanted in stock. When searching the web, found a lot of good deals, but then they charged me both shipping and tax. Shipping was $150-250!

Then was on Amazon, they had a coupon for the Marantz Sr8015 this is the older model before the Cinema series. It's the top of the line, solid, heavy, and huge. Best of all, it was just over $2k delivered!

Been enjoying it for a little over 2 weeks now, it sounds better than my old one, works almost the same, feel like I got a deal for a top end product. 

@mswale In case you haven’t heard of it, accessories4less.com has very good prices on refurbished gear (with full or even extended warranties) and has a good reputation — worth keeping in mind for future purchases as it could make getting a great deal even easier. Here’s their current list of Marantz AVRs just fyi, and congrats on your new AVR and hope it gives you many years of trouble-free performance.

https://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/category/avreceiver/home-audio/receivers-amps/home-theater-receivers/1.html

@soix, thanks, wasn't planning on the purchase, was going to buy some room treatments for the 2ch room. 

Thanks for the link, they do not have the 8015, only the Cinema 30, at $4500. Mine is basically the same thing, in a different chassis for less than have of the 30. 

The last one lasted over 10 years, hopefully this one will last even longer. I think the issue was me. It's my first Dolby Atmos receiver. My Klipsch speakers have built in Atmos speakers in the top. Basically, they are a bi-wire, but 2 separate speakers. I purchased bi-wire speaker cable for them, it was quite a stretch for all 4 plugs in the back of the receiver. Think over time, the pull on the cable loosened the terminal from the PCB.