Surround Processor / Pre Amp / 3D Sound Field

A couple of years ago I purchased a Marantz AV8801 surround preamp but I was never happy with it. It hasn’t gotten much use and since then I haven't put too much effort and attention into surround sound. Sure it was able to decode the latest formats but the sound field was boring, lacked impact, and the 3D sound field it created was mediocre. I remember back in the days I had a Sony STR-DE series of receivers that had an enhance/exaggerate function where for each sound field, one could increase the effect of the field. This created excitement while watching movies and a huge dynamic range. I also remember even before this receiver when Dolby Digital was first coming out Yamaha had an external DD decoder DDP-1 to add this capability to their receivers. Well I still remember that the DDP-1 had the best 3D sound field that I have experienced. All 5 speakers were working with each other to precisely place the sound where it belongs and was simply not just noise coming from multiple speakers. It sounded truly 3Dish and the sound moved around in open air. I really miss those days.

I am not getting this with my Marantz in a 5.1 setup (I have no desire to goto Atmos at this time). There is nothing to enhance the 3D field to exaggerate the effect. It has been calibrated multiple times with it’s built in Audyssey. I wanted to know if there were any current surround preamps / processors that would provide a better 3d field or have this as a feature to adjust the effect?