With all the hype and fanfare around HDMI and the latest audio formats available on HD/dvd and BR/dvd, I of course bought into it. Seeing all the questions about it lately, and I’ve got some time to kill, here’s a mini review of my latest addition to little HT room.
The biggest problem with HDMI, I believe anyway, is the HDMI interface between different components. In addition to that, QC of late would appear to be an afterthought of the main line receiver manufactures. Between those two rather important factors, buyers really don’t know what they are getting any more. I’m happy to report that I think I’ve found a receiver worth recommending to folks with a guilt free conscience.
I searched high and low for a receiver or seperates that would fit my needs and found out that there really are not many on the market that will do what I wanted. I wanted at least three HDMI inputs. I wanted HDMI 1.2 or higher to support SACD in addition to uncompressed PCM audio streams from BR / HD-dvd players. I also wanted two HDMI outputs so that I could route them both to my external video processor for different sources to the receiver. From there I can tailor each input however I want. I also wanted enough current from the amps to drive my M80’s and M22’s that I’ve got running parallel for my center channel. I like things loud. Louder than most I think. One thing I couldn’t care less about, and really didn’t want is video up conversion or processing. I just want an AUDIO receiver. Well they don’t make them things anymore from what I could find. At least this Marantz doesn’t put a lot of effort into the video piece. The only thing it does is convert S, composite and component video to HDMI and bump it to 480P. But that’s it.
The 8001 was the only thing I could find with these options. The closest thing to it was the Anthem AMV 40 pre/pro and I would have to pick up a couple amps to go with it. The Anthem has only one HDMI output and it’s not HDMI 1.2. Some of the Denon’s fit the bill, but I’d have to step up to the 4306 to get the number of HDMI inputs I was looking for. Oh yeah, I needed something now, so I couldn’t wait for anything that’s rolling out to consumers later this year.
After having a couple 7xxx series Harmon Kardon’s before, just about every receiver I looked at feels like a “playschool” receiver. The saying “they sure don’t make em like they used to” comes to mind. The 8001 is about forty pounds, is only 15” deep, standard width and about 8” tall. They were able to make this thing a little shallower by doing some sort of copper plate lining. Don’t ask me more about that, cause I’m clueless. It sure fits into my AV rack well though. No problems routing cables and wires. The binding posts have cheesy plastic knobs which I suppose most receivers do anyway. My HK 745 had brass knobs. They take banana plugs, spades or bare wire. – some don’t so this is a simple, but important thing to consider if you have big fingers. The face plate is a brushed black finish. I love it, no finger prints. Enough about that stuff……….
The remote sucks. It’s a cheesy, five dollar Wal-Mart special. That doesn’t matter much to me. I use a MX-850 RF/IR remote anyway. But I suppose remotes are important to some folks. So plan on buying a good one if you pick up one of these receivers.
The receiver also comes with a cheep, goofy Eiffel tower looking, plastic piece of crap mic for the Audyssey EQ speaker set up gadgetry. It doesn’t look or feel like much, but it works just fine. It just goes to show where Marantz decided to cut corners to keep the cost down on this receiver. I need to get over it….
The instructions for this thing are pretty simple. There isn’t all that much to do when setting it up. This thing was obviously made with novices in mind. Unlike the HK’s that I’ve had (and especially the 745), you could practically set them up to go get a beer out of the fridge. I used to think that was super cool for HK to allow so much user interface and control, but when I think about it, I didn’t use half that crap. Time will tell I suppose. It’s like giving up adjustable foot peddles for dual climate control when I got a new truck a couple years ago. I thought the adjustable peddles were pretty cool, but I didn’t ever use them.
This thing will not let you tailor each input like the HK’s will. If it will, I haven’t figured out how. If you like your DVD player surround mode to be THX and the cable box to be DD PL IIx, you can set that as the default on the upper end HK’s. Can’t do that with this Marantz. But again, I didn’t set my sources up differently. I kept everything set the same.
So moving along……after half a day re-routing cables and doing my best to prevent another cord orgy from occurring behind my equipment rack, I had the initial set up done in about 30 minutes. One good thing about HDMI, you can get rid of a lot of cords. That is if you have FAITH and believe that it will work. I ran HDMI, coax, optical, component and composite just to be safe. I’m happy to say that I’m using HDMI without issue for all my HDMI equipment. I guess I didn’t need to use all those cables after all.
I ran the Audyssey EQ program thinking I might as well give it try. What the hell, nothing to loose I rekon….I’ve tried HK’s auto program and thought it sucked. This took quite a while. You plug the silly Eiffel tower looking mic into the receiver, untangle the fifty foot of mic cord and try not to trip over the dam thing while placing it in up to six different seating positions. The receiver sends multiple test tones to each speaker, and then you do it again and again till you do it six times. The receiver then thinks for a while and when done asks you to save it. I did all that, then checked out the distances, speaker size, x-over and tones afterwards manually. I was pretty impressed. It measures the speaker distances closer than I could and the speakers were all within .5 db’s of each other. Even the sub was within 3 dbs’. It also applied some EQ to each speaker. I can go into each speaker and change this however I want, but I think I’m going to leave it be.
I have a Toshiba HD-AX1 dvd player, a Sony PS3 for Blu Ray, an Oppo 970 for SD dvd’s, a VP-50 video processor and a Panasonic 900 projector. All of those are connected with HDMI. I also have a Dishnet 625 SD receiver connected with S-vid and Coax vid, and optical audio. I’ve spent several hours switching back and forth between all these devices and have not had any significant issues. I’m not sure what’s going on with the Oppo, but I’ve had to turn it off and back on twice to get rid of audio drop outs. I get no errors, just irritating drop outs. All other devises are getting along well.
My great plan to use both HDMI outputs wasn’t so well thought out. Only one output is live and I haven’t figured out how to assign the outputs to inputs. So much for that bright idea…..
One glitch with uncompressed PCM audio that folks are reporting is not being able to post process 5.1 channel with Dolby, DTS or THX. Some receivers let you do it, others don’t. This one definitely does. I’ve tried discrete 5.1, 6.1 and also SACD and can apply any 7 channel surround mode to these audio streams. I can not however verify if it down samples 96 kHz or not. The display will not show me what kHz is coming in or going out. If it is down sampling, I don’t care. I’ve not ever heard anything as good as what I’m hearing out of my speakers now.
I’ve read over and over again on different internet sights how good Marantz sounds. I’ve not owned Marantz before and always thought they were ‘low end’. I don’t really know why I thought that either. Just a misguided prejudice I suppose.
I’ve spent the better part of a day just listening to this thing. I’m stoked!! I started out listening to a couple of my favorite CD’s in Stereo, THX music, Circle Surround II, Music, Dolby, DTS and they all sound great. The best however is the stereo “source direct” and even better yet, “pure direct”. In pure direct, all video is shut down, even the front display is shut down. In this mode, I have to give the knod to this receiver over my Rotel Separates. It sounds that good…..
I popped the Pink Floyd, DSOTM SACD into the Oppo and gave that a whirl. I was equally impressed and was hearing effects from the surround channels that I’ve not heard before, and I’m always showing off these Axioms with this particular CD, so I know it well.
I then decided to give my ‘show off the speakers’ DVD, War of the Worlds a spin and jumped to the tri-pod scene. I tried all the different surround modes and they all did awesome. I think my favorite is the THX Select II cinema. In this mode I again was hearing things I haven’t heard before. When the machine starts rising out of the dirt, there’s a brief shot of one of the ports blowing out air. I never heard this before. Another noteworthy part was when Tom Cruise is running away next to the woman who gets dusted. When her face disintegrates, there has always been an accompanying harsh ‘shrill’ that drove me nuts. Enough to remember it anyway. I can hear it now and it the harshness is gone.
And the LFE!!! I don’t quite get why the LFE would be so much more pronounced than before. I didn’t touch the EP-600’s volume or trim. It’s calibrated the same as with the past three receivers too. I thought there was some serious LFE before but it’s totally out of control now. My friggin pants were vibrating against my legs. Not only with this particular movie scene but everything I’ve thrown at this receiver. The LFE is just ‘there’. It’s behind me, around me, in front of me and just everywhere. It’s completely immersive. I don’t know if this is Audyssey or the receiver or both. Whatever it is, I’m liking it…
To conclude this very long ‘mini-review’, I also gave the receiver a work out. I pinned the volume knob to max while playing the new Crossfade CD in 7.1 channel THX music and left the room until it was done. The receiver was warm to the touch, but not hot. It didn’t clip or whimper at all. DB’s in the room were averaging around oh, ‘around’ 108 db’s. It was hard to tell an average loudness do to the sub maxing out the meter. Friggin loud at any rate!! I didn’t spend more than a minute in the room because even though I like things loud, I like the ability to hear even more. But while I was in the room, the music was playing crystal clear. I think it’s safe to say that this receiver will drive M80’s just fine.
I’m just keeping my fingers crossed and hoping I don’t get on a first name basis with another tech support guy.
