Hey, just a quick update, I got the 1st pt8000 amp set up in the room and balanced. 2 things I will say on it is that the pt8000 does push less power per channel than the pt3300. I haven't hooked it up the gauges yet to measure but from a listening perspective alone I would estimate a 20% drop in total output. That being said, the amp is producing a small amount of ground feed but that is coming still from the cable box not the amp itself and we have a service call scheduled to get the cable company here to resolve the problem with the main lines. Outside of those items I have no concerns just from the initial test run with the amp. It is extremely large (3 times the size of the pt3300) and weighs 58.5 pounds. The upside of the amp though is that it provides the ability to input direct channels into each output line so it made the pre-out setup from the Marantz easy. Each channel also is independent of the others and the gains can be set for each individual channel as well as phasing and balance which is a great feature for the installation. The system is bridgable and I tested the bridge functionality. When bridged to two channels the output did seem to exceed the pt3300 output however the individual channel power output is sufficient for the install. I failed to mention them but I also have 2 ppeq150 10 band equalizers (1 for mains and rear and one for center channels) which allow me to adjust clarity to the speaker configuration and really set the amp up for optimum output. I ran a test yesterday, after the house was empty, running the amp at 100% gain sets for all channels and at 85db from the Marantz for 15 min with music, 5 min with pink noise, and 5 min db sound scale testing. The amp never clipped and the sound quality never distorted on any of the channels. This is a plus above the pt3300 which would clip around 75db at 90% gain and cause distortion in bass and midrange so the power loss between the two seems to equal out on the high end with clarity. The amp also stayed very cool. I tested the amp for a little over 3.5 hours and the amp stayed very cool the whole time.
The Marantz is doing a great job of running a balance in the audio and it did upscale the HD picture quality from the stand alone HD input I was initially using. The only issue I have had with the Marantz is that our Blu ray player was clipping the audio and causing the feed to cut every 5-6 seconds. I adjusted the output settings, traded HDMI cords but nothing fixed the issue. I tested it on other input lines on the unit and it did the same thing. Additionally, it is the only component that is doing this. For the temporary solution, I kept the HDMI spliter that I initially had on the setup and ran the video feed from the blu ray directly to the projector and the audio feed into the pre pro via the digital audio out. This fixed the cutting however the trade off was the loss of the Marantz screen controls during movie play on the blu ray and there is now an extra set of steps involved (switching channels on the spliter as well as switching audio controls on the pre pro) to set up this view. I plan on pulling a player from another room to see if there might be a compatibility issue with the LG. If that is the case I will simply trade out units for the time being so I can restore the ease of function for the blu ray. On a bad note however, our Minix system failed to make it here due to a shipping label issue and apparently was routed back so we may require a re-order which could take up to 2-3 weeks to get here so that component is still on the list of installation.
I will try to get some photos out of the setup as well soon.
