For HT duty only, the Marantz will be great. Had one and now a Denon for HT. Same company, similar HT performance. And all the modern software/firmware to manage modern HT sound decoding is a plus.
Marantz vs. Oppo or Theta
Hi everyone,
Sorry for the weird comparisons. I'm thinking of getting a Marantz 7706 because of the manual EQ features (that's right, not looking for room correction).
My biggest issues with processors and HT receivers in the past is that some of them just sounded like garbage. Really really thin, like AM radios. Several Japanese brands and Emotiva were brands I could not really listen to for long.
My question is how the Marantz compares say to the Oppo BD players, which were excellent, or say a Theta from a decade ago. I'm not looking for perfection, but robust and transparent.
Thank you,
Erik
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Hi @soix I had the Casanova and it was outstanding. The reasons I'm not seriously considering Theta right now is many-fold. First, they were SO far behind in getting HDMI working, plus of course the massive cost of a unit today. Lastly, they are not an enthusiast brand. They are a uber-high end billion dollar mansion builder brand. I'm not their target market/customer at all, especially not if I want to configure everything myself. I’m also not sure Theta has the manual EQ features I’m looking for. @nwres Yes, the Marantz would be HT only, using a Luxman stereo to handle music. My concern is just that the mass-market Japanese HT brands were just ... really so bad that I’m afraid of going back to a Japanese brand for HT. |
I own a Theta Casablanca V. In my opinion, it is an outstanding AV preamp/processor/DAC in flexibility and sound quality (insofar as what it does, which is everything except SACD decoding and MQA decoding). It also has built-Dirac Live. I use mine to both watch movies and listen to music. My criticisms are two: its video switching is subpar in terms of its syncing consistency (not a problem for me because I use an external AVpro video switch); and it is very, very expensive. It doesn’t make sense to compare a Casablanca with any other “comparable” AV unit because there aren’t any. The Casablanca is custom in the way an Aston Martin Valkyrie is. |
I haven’t heard the Theta but do own an OPPO BP 103 I bought in 2014 and purchased the Marantz 7706 last year. I love the Marantz for tone/room control. I used the Audyssey but ended up using manual adjustments (there are two presets so can use both). The Audyssey told me I had a speaker out of phase (I didn’t) AND wanted to set the crossovers at 120hz for my monoblocked tower speakers! Ummm…no! That aside, the settings are very flexible. Distance measured in .1ft vs OPPO at .5ft. dB level settings +/-10 dB and crossover setting in 10hz increments from 40hz-120hz. Also, what’s really great is level adjustments for ALL channels on independent sources which solved the problem I had of my Amazon Fire always sounding lower than the OPPO or other sources! I primarily got the Marantz for ATMOS and am not disappointed. |
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