Marantz vs Denon

News flash: you won't hear a difference between any of them. Get the AVR that has enough power to drive your speakers and you're golden.

I worked at Best Buy Magnolia for a few months and got to compare all of their AVRs with my reference recordings on B&W 804s.  The only receiver that approached the sound quality of my $25k home system was Yamaha, and it wasn’t close.  I’d assume Anthem would sound even better but I wasn’t able to compare that.  Think of it this way — Marantz is warm and mushy sounding while Onkyo, Denon, Adcom pretty much sound the same.  Yamaha is just simply at a higher level IME.  I didn’t expect this, but it was very clear to hear.  Plus, they make the most reliable AVRs on the market, which is a nice bonus.  Just my experience FWIW.