Marantz DAC hardware

[Phil J N.Z.]

Has anyone any idea what DAC is fitted in the Cinema 40 and Cinema 50 AVR's, I cannot find any information on this anywhere and my only other option is a Yamaha RX-A6A and that has 2 ESS Saber DAC's.

 

[everettT]

Has anyone any idea what DAC is fitted in the Cinema 40 and Cinema 50 AVR's, I cannot find any information on this anywhere and my only other option is a Yamaha RX-A6A and that has 2 ESS Saber DAC's.

The amplifier sections would be more of a limiting factor, but based on review, neither are going to be audibly an issue.

 

[lovinthehd]

@PENG is your best bet for chip knowledge. I wouldn't make a decision merely on the make of chip, it's just not particularly important and wouldn't be an audible difference.

 

[TLS Guy]

@PENG is your best bet for chip knowledge. I wouldn't make a decision merely on the make of chip, it's just not particularly important and wouldn't be an audible difference.

I would have said that once, but my view has changed and I don't think that is true in the spatial arena especially.

 

[lovinthehd]

I would have said that once, but my view has changed and I don't think that is true in the spatial arena especially.

Yeah, you get a lot of things wrong, though, too. Wasn't it more determined much less likely a dac particularly vs higher processing capabilities for dsp?

 

[m. zillch]

Competent DACs, with reasonably low noise and distortion (which I've seen executed for as little as under $10 at retail), designed to properly provide accurate rather than gimmicked or "enhanced" sound (which they may lie about "not doing"), using comparable/sensible filter settings that don't skew the audible frequency band, played at precisely matched volume levels (as determined by instrumentation and calibration tones, not "winging it" by ear), sound the same. That is to say they are audibly transparent, aka "audibly perfect", at least for a single pass through the DAC. Replay the music through them repeatedly over and over again however, say 10X, 50X, or 100 times, and there will eventually be a cumulative build up of noise and distortion that reaches the level of being audibly detectable to humans.

 

[PENG]

Has anyone any idea what DAC is fitted in the Cinema 40 and Cinema 50 AVR's, I cannot find any information on this anywhere and my only other option is a Yamaha RX-A6A and that has 2 ESS Saber DAC's.

See this post (it says Denon, but it is the same for Marantz):
Denon Replaces AKM AK4458 DAC IC in X4700H and X6700H | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum

The Cinema 40, 50, 60, 70 and the corresponding Denon equivalents all have TI's PCM5102A.

Your SR7015 has either AKM's AK4458 (if made before the Spring of 2021), or the same PCM5102A if made after that time.

ESS Sabre has a lot of DAC ICs, like TI, Wolfson and others, you can't assume just because it is ESS it is better than others. The RX-A6A does have two ESS DAC ICs, but only one is the ES9026Pro, that has specs slightly better than the AK4458, the other one has mediocre specs, and is used for the surround and height channels.

In reality, the DAC IC won't be a factor for most use cases, even the PCM5102A currently used by D+M, if implemented well, is "transparent" in terms of sound quality.

 

[PENG]

Yeah, you get a lot of things wrong, though, too. Wasn't it more determined much less likely a dac particularly vs higher processing capabilities for dsp?

He knows, but for some reason he seems to keep getting the DSP chip and dac chip mixed up.