Marantz PM-11 S3 - thoughts?

Not personally, but Paul from The absolute sounds made a thorough review about it.

The Marantz Reference series integrateds are excellent solid state amps. I have auditioned the PM-11S3's little brother, the 15S2LE several times and finally broke down and recently purchased one. It is now happily driving my 4 Ohm Vienna Bach Grands to new heights. The 15S2LE has excellent build quality, more than enough power for my needs and most important of all - it is extremely musical! Needless to say I have not been so enamored with an amp in a very long time.

And this is the smaller of the two Marantz reference amps. I can only imagine how great the more powerful 11S3 would sound. You have not mentioned what speakers you plan on driving with it, but I can reasonably say that the 11S3 will handle anything you hook up to it. And make you very happy.

I auditioned the 11S2. Beautiful build quality. The upper end was lacking big time so that might have been an area of improvement with the S3. I ended up with the Hegel H200 because I liked the sound a lot more and didn't need all the features of the Marantz. If you like the Marantz sound, it's a no brainier. The build quality is as good as it gets. As far as I'm concerned it's heirloom quality. Make sure you judge with your ear and certainly do not buy it without auditioning it.

I, too, have the Marantz PM-15S2b and love it. I can only imagine how nice the PM-11S3 sounds.

All the best,
Nonoise

Thanks very much guys, looks like resistance is futile!

PS Speakers are the Joseph Audio Pulsars.

Quick update - got the PM11-S3 and am very happy with it. Beautifully warm and punchy sound and boy, the build quality is amazing - this amp weighs 60lbs!!

Thanks for the update Classact. I am happy you are pleased with your new PM11-S3 but frankly not surprised. I'll bet the amp and your Pulsars sound fabulous. Enjoy the music!

I have lived with the PM11S3 for almost two years now and i love it! I had in my previous systems the Pass Labs X250 amp and X1 preamp combo, tried the Modwright KI200, had others tube amps and Audio Research, etc. The PM11S3 fits my needs the best! I find it has all the details I need plus to me, it was more "punchy" than the X250/X1 combo, less than the KI200, which had monstrous slam, best of the bunch, but was a bit too "bright" for me.

I would love to get another PM11S3 for bi-amping, but that's a lot of dough!

Gotoma8,

I had a whole string of Marantz amps before going OTL. If you try an Atma-Sphere there may be no going back.

Does anyone leave the PM11S3 powered up all of the time or do you just leave it in standby? If you leave it in standby how long do you let it warm-up before listening? Thanks.

Sabai,

Thanks for the note. I, unfortunately need some high power amps as my speakers are acoustically suspended and only 86db in efficiency.

Tuan

Gotoma8,

My speakers are also in the same range. Paul Speltz Zero Autotransformers solve the problem. I have loads of headroom now.