Marantz av7005 vs av8801 vs Theta Casablanca

Oh, you could do fuse upgrade in your Marantz AV8801 as well, if you wish. For this, I would recommend a 2A Furutech for the most speed and resolution. I don’t know the physical size, as I think the fuse is inside somewhere.

if you are cost conscious and don’t want to waste money experimenting with multiple Furutech/Isoclean fuse combinations, you could try the generic PADIS fuses for the Emotiva amps. The Isoclean are very warm, but very inviting in the sound.  There is definitely a magic with the Isoclean. The Furutech are extremely high resolution and transparent. The PADIS are somewhat in between.

as far as the Furman goes, I don’t know. Usually, people say to plug the larger amps directly into the wall, but others have had success with power conditioner. Best suggestion is to try it both ways and see if the Furman restricts the sound. Plugging into the wall could give more current which would be more muscle in the bass and the instruments would hit with more authority.

Thanks for all the input Aux. I'm going to get some fuses and give them a try after I A, B, C the preamps. 

Just a brief update on the av8801, I used the on screen Audyssey setup and was able to pinpoint the phase error that way. Looks like when I flipped the phase I might actually kept it the same on the rr surround. I was also able to run full range on the front 3 and after running Audyssey was able to add the subwoofer into the mix during 2 channel. I really like to feel the music. The room correction seems to sound much better than the av7005, after I tweaked some settings more to my taste. I will say overall the av8801 sounds great, I did notice a slightly digital / mp3 sound from the surround and rear channels on DTS matrix while streaming music. I'm going to try it tomorrow with vinyl. The av8801 seems to get pretty hot, doesn't seem to matter what you are doing with it. I think it may have cut off a few times, I thought it was the digital source the first few times but while I was listening to vinyl it cut off for a second but I was in the other room so didn't observe. I'm going to keep an eye on this, turned my rack fans on. I think I'm pretty happy with the current setting so I ordered a set of bookshelves to try out the height / width options. I'm going to continue with the av8801 until they get here before I hook up the Theta. 

Just another brief update, the av8801 is really growing on me now that I have the room correction figured out. I think the set of speakers I ordered to use as wides will be here today so I'm excited to see what 9.1 will sound like. I can say that the av7005 was great but I didn't like the room correction, this all changes with the av8801. I'm actually thinking about just selling the Theta because I really like all these channels, I'm not sure what it would cost to bring the theta to a 7.1 or a 9.1.

Theta upgrade will be extremely expensive.  You are probably looking at $4,000 to $7,000 to upgrade to latest, depending on which DSP version and DAC boards you need.  If you want 9.1, it's probably over $10k for sure.

Agreed, I think my money is still better spent on the rest of the speakers. Maybe someday I will be at the Theta level.