A Christmas Upgrade Advice-- AV Receiver- Please

William Lemmerhirt

William Lemmerhirt

Audioholic Overlord
Thank you so much for your valuable input, Buyers remorse, that is the key and decisive word.
FYI, in here The Denon AVR-X6800H is for $3,410
Marantz C30 for $4,055.
Anthem MRX-1140 for $4,950 (I wonder how it compares to the C30)
The main differences will be how the auto setup and room correction software deal with things. Ypao, mcacc audyssey, Dirac and anthem etc all do it a little differently. No way to know what one will do differently vs another. Another key is navigating menus. For ME, while I do like the performance of many Yamaha AVR’s, I will never buy another one. Simply because I really dislike the menu structure, and they’re proprietary language and one off ways of doing things. Mostly the other brands are navigable and intuitive enough. I do enjoy my Marantz a lot despite some small quirks and will
Use it for a long time.
For you, it seems to me that the price hike from the denon to the Marantz isn’t high enough to be a deal breaker, while the difference from the Marantz to the anthem, almost 1k, while being roughly 1500 over the denon.(can buy a very nice AVR for that price gap lol) I estimate that to be well into diminishing returns, which of course for most people that would qualify. But if you have an ample budget, only you can decide where that line is. From here, it looks like the Marantz is right about where your comfort level is if not slightly above. FWIW, I think you’d love it.
And also, happy new year to you!
 
G

greatestboss

Junior Audioholic
The main differences will be how the auto setup and room correction software deal with things. Ypao, mcacc audyssey, Dirac and anthem etc all do it a little differently. No way to know what one will do differently vs another. Another key is navigating menus. For ME, while I do like the performance of many Yamaha AVR’s, I will never buy another one. Simply because I really dislike the menu structure, and they’re proprietary language and one off ways of doing things. Mostly the other brands are navigable and intuitive enough. I do enjoy my Marantz a lot despite some small quirks and will
Use it for a long time.
For you, it seems to me that the price hike from the denon to the Marantz isn’t high enough to be a deal breaker, while the difference from the Marantz to the anthem, almost 1k, while being roughly 1500 over the denon.(can buy a very nice AVR for that price gap lol) I estimate that to be well into diminishing returns, which of course for most people that would qualify. But if you have an ample budget, only you can decide where that line is. From here, it looks like the Marantz is right about where your comfort level is if not slightly above. FWIW, I think you’d love it.
And also, happy new year to you!
Thank you for your sound advice.
 
G

greatestboss

Junior Audioholic
Hello All, a quick update as I've promised.
  • Bought the Paradigm X15 and Marantz Cinema 30
  • Sold the DT Subwoofer and Onkyo TX-NR3030
  • Moved the Dolby Atmos SVS Speakers to the back on top of the back surround.
  • Moved the Center Couch forward.
  • Ran the Anthem ARC Genesis for the Subwoofer and Audyssey room correction using the $19.99 App.
Everything went perfect, sound is Soooo amazing. The only disappointing issue is the with the eARC HDMI connection with my Cable box- TV and AV Receiver, the signal- Video and Audio kept on going on and off every few minutes and would disconnect for 2-3 seconds and then the picture comes back. Apparently this is a common issue with Marantz. I tried everything possible but to no avail. IN the end, I connected the HDMO out from the Cable box to the TV directly and the Optical from the Cable box to the Marantz Optical input. It worked fine afterwards with no issues.
The only annoying issue is that the Marantz menu won't appear on the TV Screen unless I switch to eARC.


In all cases it's so disappointing that for such an expensive AV Receiver, this issue of eARC signal drop while watching. (if anyone knows a solution, kindly share).
I'm attaching the new room photos after all the adjustments.

Your thoughts and feedback are highly appreciated.
 

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Trebdp83

Audioholic Spartan
Try reconnecting it to the Cinema 30 and open the Setup menu to the 4K/8K Signal Format settings. Set the cable box to 4K Standard. Then, go to the HDCP Settings. Set the HDMI port used by the cable box to HDCP 1.4.

If the cable box is the beIN 4K, it will probably output the 1080HD signals without upscaling using the new settings and the TV will do the upscaling of the signal. See if that does the trick.
 
G

greatestboss

Junior Audioholic
Try reconnecting it to the Cinema 30 and open the Setup menu to the 4K/8K Signal Format settings. Set the cable box to 4K Standard. Then, go to the HDCP Settings. Set the HDMI port used by the cable box to HDCP 1.4.

If the cable box is the beIN 4K, it will probably output the 1080HD signals without upscaling using the new settings and the TV will do the upscaling of the signal. See if that does the trick.
Thanks @Trebdp83for the advice, I'll try it and will let you know if the issue is resolved.
 
G

greatestboss

Junior Audioholic
Try reconnecting it to the Cinema 30 and open the Setup menu to the 4K/8K Signal Format settings. Set the cable box to 4K Standard. Then, go to the HDCP Settings. Set the HDMI port used by the cable box to HDCP 1.4.

If the cable box is the beIN 4K, it will probably output the 1080HD signals without upscaling using the new settings and the TV will do the upscaling of the signal. See if that does the trick.
I tried it and did all the settings you mentioned, still it didn't work. Signal goes, loss of Video and Audio for 2-3 seconds.
Check the picture I just took. It happened twice in the past 10 minutes.
 

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Trebdp83

Audioholic Spartan
If there are any handshake or signal issues, they can only get worse when going through an AVP/AVR. With new systems, I always recommend Ultra Certified cables all the way around. This still may not help with some devices.

If the beIN is still actually sending a 4K signal, see if setting it to output 1080i or 1080p @60Hz works. The TV will upscale it.
 
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G

greatestboss

Junior Audioholic
If there are any handshake or signal issues, they can only get worse when going through an AVP/AVR. With new systems, I always recommend Ultra Certified cables all the way around. This still may not help with some devices.

If the beIN is still actually sending a 4K signal, see if setting it to output 1080i or 1080p @60Hz works. The TV will upscale it.
All my cables are Audioquest and I believe they are Ultra Certified cables. I've set it to 1080i and it still gave me the same issue. I really don't know what to do other than Connecting the Video directly to my TV and use the Optical from the beIN to my Marantz, I don't know if this will impact the Audio quality.
 
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