I have only been in the audio hobby full scale for about 2 years now.
I have dealt with a number of manufacturers during this time as I setup and grow my system. As you get into finding out how a product works and operates, I think you can get a pretty good picture of a company from a number of things. The customer support, websites, manuals, and ofcourse the performance of the product itself.
I am writing this up to share my experience to see if anyone might have the same views or perhaps shed an opposite assessment. Not an ounce of this is exaggerated.
This is about Marantz. I aquired a universal player, the DV7600. Here is what I experienced with this company. Note: I have a fair sampling, because the manual was poor I called Marantz about 7 times over a two week period.
1. You can usually expect at least a 10 minute wait for phone support. I have left my cell on speaker a couple times and waited 25 minutes on one occasion and 45 minutes on another. The recording told me I was the next caller and the wait would be 1 minute about 10 minutes into those longest calls.
2. Once you get someone - I have never experienced a company where different technicians are so consistenly surly and inconvinienced by your call.
3. OK, so their surly, are they any good ?
Here is some dialog quoted as closely as I can, all regarding
my Marantz universal DVD player.
Phone conversation:
(me). 'On the product sheet, it says the DV7600 has adjustable delay bass managment. I can't find anything on this in the manual, could you tell me where to find info on this.'
(Marantz Tech). Bass managment only refers to when you connect the DVD player directly to a TV.
(me) I thought it had to do with how the player handles bass managment for analog output.
(Marantz). Wait a minute, hold on. ...about 8 minutes later... There is nothing in the manual, your receiver handles all of that.
(me). What about analog and what the product brochure says?
(Marantz) Look ! You can only raise the subwoofer level. Its all it has in the manual.
(me) OK. I guess its a mistake on the brochure.
I asked a few more questions and as part of the responses, I was informed that DVD-A is a type of SACD and both are almost always only 2 channel.
(me) Could I get another technician please, some of the things you are telling me are not accurate.
(Marantz) I'm trying to help you, and you are being negative.
(me) Ok. I will call back later.
Then on a completely different call with a different person. This was a few days before the other one.
(me) 'What version of HDMI is the DV7600 ? I can't understand why it downmixes or only plays DVD-A in stereo through the HDMI connection.'
(Marantz tech) Its 1.1. But you can't play SACD or DVD-A through HDMI anyway.
(me) I have a receiver that is HDMI 1.3 and I'm looking at a product brochure for an Oppo DVD player that plays multi-channel high resolution formats through HDMI.
(Marantz) What type of receiver do you have, I can hardly beleive that. I guess there are some new players that do this but we don't make one.
(me) OK.
end call
Unbelievable, isn't it. But I did not make a bit of this up. I wish it was not true.
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The manual for this player has some confouding errors and important info is buried awkwardly througout. It also leaves out rather key information that you have to stumble upon on your own. Such as:
1. Changing some audio settings require not only the player to be stopped but a disc cannot even be in the tray.
2. You can't use the separate L/R analog outs for stereo output unless you switch a setting in the audio menu. (this was important to me cuz I have a zone 2 with 2.0 setup, I use it sometimes when playing DVD video concerts.)
Overall I give the manual a solid C minus, a passing grade but still poor in comparison to other manuals.
A brief Audioholics review said this player has full bass managment for DVD-A and SACD. I am not well versed in bass management but I could not find anything except that the manual says LFE can be 'on' or 'off'. So the Marantz product sheet on the website says 'adjustable bass delay managemnt'.
http://us.marantz.com/Products/397.asp
If its not true that is just plain bad on Marantz's part.
So, lastly, the player.
Its not bad, but far from impressed. Sounds very good with the analog outs in 5.1. Seems very sturdy (over 10 pounds is pretty hefty for a disc player). I really like the display on the player itself, well organized and informative. I guess this player came out before HDMI 1.3 so I won't fault it for that. Loads very slow.
Based on my experience though, I seriously doubt I would ever consider buying anything from them. These are the kinds of experiences that formulate my future purchases. When it comes to customer support I have had varying experiences with other vendors. Even Panasonic who produces a million different things managed to provide friendly and competant support. Klipsch has been good, very neighborly and they are set up where engineers can be reached pretty easily. Pioneer has been the best so far. They have all the audio gear right there with them and if they cannot answer a question they will tell you 'we will ask an engineer an call you back'. Which they always have. You usually get a tech on the phone within 3 minutes, many times instantly.
Anyone like to impart their experiences with CS ?
