The Marantz stuff has excellent design and build quality. Very good power supplies and Marantz is the only receiver that has a fully discrete analog output stage. The sound will be very strong and full. However, the Marantz is voiced on the warm side, so you will have soft and rolled off highs when compared to other receivers. This is the Marantz voicing and some may like it. I was able to test the latest Marantz processor in my system and it was very good, but definitely warm.
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The Denon will be a more conventional receiver "sound". Another option to look at is the Anthem MRX720 or MRX1120 receivers. The Anthem will probably be about the highest resolution sound quality for a receiver. This is excellent if you want the HT movie excitement. These Anthem receivers could come across just a little bit bright sounding at times, but they are excellent for high resolution and crystal clear movie sound.
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I may have to disagree with you just a little bit, soix. I have heard the older Polk Rti speakers and they are actually a pretty good product. Not the highest resolution, but very well balanced and definitely not bright/harsh. Obviously, there are much better speakers, but at this budget, they are pretty darn good. Another to look at is Elac speakers (another great bang for the buck - and also not bright/harsh).
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But I will agree with you on Yamaha recommendation. Of the "conventional receivers", I think the Yamaha is the most natural sounding receiver and doesn't suffer from that "bright/cheap receiver sound" that many other receivers do have. I just didn't want to "push another recommendation", lol. I recently implemented a Yamaha RX-A2070 with upgraded fuse and power cord. Result was very excellent.
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Yes, it was the latest AV8805 processor. I have not directly heard the 8802 or 8803, but I suspect that there really isn't that much difference. The 8802 was already extremely well designed with large main power supply and a lot of localized power supply capacitors all around the DAC I/V board. And the "new" version of the Marantz HDAM discrete analog boards.
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I was quite impressed with the AV8805, based on a $4k price tag and expecting the Marantz "warm" signature. The sound was very full and had a lot of impact and authority (audio percussion and sounds hit with a lot of authority). That being said, I could tell it was warm with rolled-off highs. If that was my only exposure to HT processors, I could easily live with it. It did sound very good.
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That being said, my main proc is Krell S1200U and the Krell basically blew away the Marantz in all ways! Krell was significantly cleaner in both audio AND video. Of course audio was not warm sounding and was crystal clear. However, it was surprising how good the video was on the Krell, since it is just re-transmitting the HDMI signal with the audio stripped out. With the Marantz, I could tell that the video (through HDMI) was not clean and had a lot of noise. Images were not as crisp and sharp looking.
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A lot of this could be explained by the Krell using only linear power supplies (even for digital and video sections). There isn't any switching power supply in the Krell (even the Foundation uses ONLY LINEAR). That being said, I think the Marantz warmth could be resolved a lot by placing in a Hi-Fi Tuning Supreme or Silverstar fuse. That would increase the speed/detail and reduce the warmth, and would probably also increase the sharpness and quality of the HDMI video.
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@caphill - hopefully you are still monitoring this thread. I tested the AV8805 in my system using the beginning part of a movie that had excellent music in the intro and very high quality audio and video. And yes, it did have excellent surround elements in the beginning of the movie. We did not do an Audessey calibration - it was completely turned off.
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Regarding a second topic, I have tried room correction and I do not like that at all. I had the opportunity to do a Dirac room correction in my own theater and I could never get it to sound right. Dirac is so horrendessly intrusive on changing and tweaking the sound that it creates problems in my opinion. The Dirac processing did weird things to the phasing of the sound and made all sounds seem like they were in your head (like listening to headphones) instead of way out in front of you like the movie ambience is supposed to be. I could dial this down, but it never sounded good. It also tweaked the frequency response and sometimes seemed to make things too smooth - I lost resolution and microdetail in the sound/tones/textures. Also, if aggressively used in bass, it caused subwoofers to peak and push to much at bass null frequencies. Sorry, but Dirac is not for me.
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I think I tried YPAO Yamaha auto-correction. That did not work well either. In both cases, things just sounded better and more natural with any sort of automatic room correction turned off. I do a lot of room acoustic treatments and I use careful equipment matching and fuses to control timber and response of the equipment. That works significantly better than any sort of room correction.
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Actually, at RMAF there was a room that really touted "room correction". I listened for just a bit, and it sounded nice and balanced, but I could not understand what the big deal was, lol. Many other rooms sounded nice and balanced. This "room correction" room actually sounded rather flat and sterile, most likely because it was using an external/outboard room correction device and signal goes through A/D and D/A stages - which lose all the voicing and "singing" of the preamp/processor.
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As a preface for this system description, for all wiring (power cord, interconnect, speaker cable) I use some variation of solid-core OCC copper conductors and everything has Furutech rhodium plated connectors. Even use Furutech GTX/NCF rhodium outlets.
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If I had to describe my acoustic room treatments, I would have to end it with "a partridge in a pair tree", lol.
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I have the B&W 805 D3 for left/right and HTM2 D3 for center. For surrounds, I’m still using some older Focal Cobalt speakers (one of the things on my list for future upgrade, lol). I use an Oppo 103 for transport and it does have an upgraded linear power supply. I also have an external linear power supply that powers both my DirecTV receiver and my Lumagen Radiance video processor - I wrote a thread on "Musings on Switching Power Supplies" that you can read if you want. Everything going to a Sony VW95ES projector (which was the best 1080p project that was produced, in my opinion).
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I used to run all Emotiva XPR-1 monoblocks for my front stage (including subwoofers) and XPA-1L monoblocks for surrounds - all amps fully loaded with Furutech rhodium fuses. Over the summer, I finally upgraded to Parasound JC1 for left/right and an A21 for surrounds. I have been able to remove the warm Parasound sonic signature by a careful combination of Furutech and Hi-Fi- Tuning Supreme fuses. I had originally put in all Futurech fuses, but I found that it was still too warm and my Emotiva amps actually had more resolution and clarity!! wow. Installing 1-3 Hi-Fi Tuning silver fuses increased the resolution of the Parasound amps. The B&W D3 really need an extremely high resolution amp to sing.
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I just installed a Hi-Fi Tuning into the JC1 main fuse on Wednesday and it’s still burning in, but it sounds promising. It’s at that point where the burn-in has a slightly warm/veiled sound - the edge has just a very slight bit of dull on it, but it should open up within a week. On my Focal surrounds, I found I had to pull the silver fuse and go back to all Furutech because of that Focal titanium dome tweeter breaking up and the speed of the Focal woofer just didn’t give enough body. I know this speaker is a problem, but it’s on the list someday.
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I still have Emotiva XPR-1 for center and subwoofers (two subs that have a 12" driver in a huge vented cabinet that I built - about the size of an huge SVS subwoofer and weighs about 200lbs). I have a final JC1 on the way to replace the center channel. I will then take that "free" XPR-1 and re-cap it to use as a final subwoofer amp. This is actually the best amp I have ever heard for subwoofer duty - extreme amounts of current and power and full linear power supply - 1800 watts at 4 ohm, I cannot actually use more than 60% of this amp or the subwoofer drivers will peak out!! lol.
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I tried a set of Bryston 7b3 monoblocks in my system and found that they just did not work well. The Bryston was just about the highest resolution amp, but it’s so close to Class B (an extremely low bias Class AB) that it’s just too fast with no decay - the sound was there and gone before I could really hear it and it had no body - It actually could not even keep up with my Emotiva amps in body and volume. I think the Bryston would work well with a very warm preamp and lot’s of gold-plated connectors on wiring. This helped me because the Bryston 28b was one of the amps I was considering instead of re-capping one of my XPR-1 amps.
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Regarding the 4K thing, I have had people come over and see my projector and their comment is "that's 1080p?!?! Really???". The image actually looks so good, it's pretty much just like film. I'm sure that a good Sony 4K projector will be better than what I have, but it is also based on source content.
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The JC1 has a better input stage and I wanted full monoblock for my front stage (including center channel). The A23 is fine for surround, but the center channel is the most important.
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I actually got a pair of Bryston 7b3 monoblocks after I determined the Parasound was too slow/warm. The Bryston went way too far into the resolution/speed. It's about the highest resolution amp I've heard, but it responds so fast that the sound is there and gone before you can really hear it. It was not a match in my system and I did not want to "try to make it work" through stuff like gold-plated interconnect and cables. It actually could not keep up with my Emotiva in body and volume!
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The Classe amplifiers were on my list, but a couple things put them down further on priority. One was silver color (though I could try to get CT models that had a black front). The other was the fan - I did not want to deal with a fan after years of usage. I will keep them in mind, though, and let you know if I decide to try another amp. My Parasound JC1 are fully loaded with all silver fuses now and I think that will get me to where I want.
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My 1080p sony VW95ES projector is so good that I do not actually feel any need to upgrade to 4K at this time. It would be a minimum $14k investment to do that, since it would be at least $10k for a decent 4K projector and another $3.5k for Lumagen video processor. This doesn't include any expense for Oppo or other 4K bluray - and I would have to look at my processor, which does not support 4K. lol. If I were to do this type of thing in the future, I would probably get the latest MArantz (i.e. AV8805) and then start pulling the guts out and rebuilding - putting in faster op amps on digital I/V board and upgrading all caps to something like Nichicon KZ, etc.
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I have thought about full range towers for my left/right, but I would first have to build new subs (which is an idea on the list). My subs are just about the same exact size of a SVS PB16-Ultra (massively huge) and towers would not really work for optimum positioning in my room. My current subs are about 28" deep and I would have to build taller and shallower subs so that I could place the towers in front of them and still keep the proper position and room acoustics. lol.
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Well, if I can't get my Parasound amps to a level where I'm satisfied, your buddie's three CA-M600 amplifiers are definitely an option, especially if he's willing to sell for $7-8k. I should know within a couple weeks if these Parasound will work out with the silver fuses (need to burn them in, as they were just put in last Friday).
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As I have said, I feel no need to upgrade to 4K at this time. To me, the sound is much more important right now. Upgrading to 4K will be way down on the priority list. In 5 years, I might feel differently, but a $14k expense is too much for me right now.
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Yeah, stock, the Marantz AV8805 is not going to be as good sounding at the Krell Foundation or Classe Sigma (I have not heard the NAD). However, I will avoid anything with op amps if I possibly can. Even though the Classe is good, it's not going to be good enough for me. The Marantz AV8805 has an excellent base architecture with its massive power supply and discrete analog output stages. However, it can definitely be improved upon. I'm not sure where the future will lead me, but I believe my Krell S1200 will still sound better than pretty much anything out there (it's just that the consumer market places so much value on 4K and Atmos and every new thing that comes out).
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Oh, just re-read your post. It sounds like your buddy only has two CA-M600 amps. There's actually a guy on audiogon selling a pair of black CT-M600 for $7580. Unfortunately, I would really need three amps, and it will be much harder to find a single black M600 than it was to find a single black JC1. I was looking at them when I pulled the trigger on the Bryston 7b3 amps, but I have since redirected my focus back to JC1s (which I now have three).
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I did not upgrade to Oppo 203 because I mainly use it for a transport and the 103 still has Netflix streaming (which I do a lot of). The Oppo 103 is still the absolute best transport for Netflix streaming, and I do have the linear power supply upgrade.
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