My tests
Hi SoundHound,
First of all, I would like to clarify that I don’t pretend Marantz is bad.
I am a msuciaan, composer who has a lot of experience in music material…but absolutely newbie in hi-fi and AVR material.
As a musician, I have a pair of Yamaha MS-P5 monitors that are very good….the purpose of a monitor is not to distort or embellish the sound at all so that I can hear exactly what was recorded.
In my research for a good AVR material, my priorities are:
1. No distorsion in the soun
2. have a good image: if the sax baryton was recorded on the left, I want to ear it on the left
I want to ear each instrument distinguishly even in a Big Band recording…with a good reproduction
3. I need to hear a warm profound quality sound, “like if the musicians were in the room”
4. Power without distorsion
5. Last criteria: possibilities for connecting home studio material in the future (for the moment I don’t even have a TV!)
So I went to a shop where they had 3 models connected to the same BOSE speakers (stereo):
1. Denon 1509
2. Harman KArdon AVR 132
3. Marantz 3001
I asked the girl to put my excellent CD of Ray Charles singing with Count Basie’s big band and to put all receivers in stereo mode without any change….all connected to BOSE (or was it B&W) speakers.
I didn’t verify her settings but the result was as follows:
Denon 1509 and Harman Kardon AVR 132 were quite similar in terms of quality (the sound was a little different but I think we can get close to each other by some balance and equalization settings)
Marantz was far below in terms of quality:
I could not distinguish the instruments…all coming from the middle, flat sound, no profond sound, nothing that attracted my ear…maybe it was just this specific Marantz model….or should I have played with the remote control…but the conclusion of this test was straightforward to my ear!
Another problem is that for an unknown reason Marantz in Israel is 2 times the price of Marantz in the us or in Europe…the same models!
So now …still hesitating between Denon and Harman Kardon.
Best Day!