Super confused and frustrated with the Marantz SR8015

[Timforhifi]

What speakers did you have?

 

[340Cuda]

What speakers did you have?

Old Infinity stuff from the early 90's!

 

[Pogre]

Old Infinity stuff from the early 90's!

Which ones did you have? I have a pair of IL30s from around then and I really like them a lot.

 

[340Cuda]

Which ones did you have? I have a pair of IL30s from around then and I really like them a lot.

Nothing that nice! RS4's

 

[Timforhifi]

Infinity made great speakers, I just bought some beta 50 for garage setup. Had kappa 600 for a bit too. Awesome gear for the money. Few months back I bought my son that’s 15, jbl l890. Harman is great

 

[PENG]

Marantz states 70% power with 7 channels driven, so I'm assuming 60-70 watts with all 11. I'm pretty sure that at no time all 11 speakers would ever pull full output, leaving a decent amount of headroom on the front stage.
The SVS prime speakers were upgraded trying to fix the SQ problem after installing the initial 6014. They do sound better than the speakers they replaced, are 1-2 Db more efficient, so if I had done the upgrade with the Onkyo, I'm sure it would have been better.

Pure direct mode should be a good indicator so if that makes a difference then you can continue to troubleshoot from there. To play it safe though, you probably should do a factory reset just in case some settings got unintentionally messed up for whatever reason. There are many settings in such a complicated AVR, pure direct mode would not be affected by most settings but not necessarily all.

If ECO is set to off, that's good, but have you also checked the impedance setting, to make sure it did not get accidentally set to 4 Ohm. If set to 4 Ohms, it would also limit the power output by a lot. Again, a factory reset would eliminate a lot of doubts but even after that you should double check to make sure ECO is off and impedance setting at 8 Ohms, as part of the troubleshooting procedure. After that, do what you have to do.

Power output is unlikely to be the issue, based on historic test results of models below the SR8015:

Just take a look of some previous test results of the lower models and you will see why I would take such an educated guess:

Marantz SR8012 (Test) – audiovision
105 WPC, 7 channels driven, into 6 Ohms
235 WPC, 2 channels driven, into 5 Ohms.

Marantz SR7011 A/V Receiver Review Test Bench | Sound & Vision (soundandvision.com)
Five channels driven continuously into 8-ohm loads:
0.1% distortion at 104.9 watts
1% distortion at 117.0 watts

Seven channels driven continuously into 8-ohm loads:
0.1% distortion at 75.1 watts
1% distortion at 90.4 watts

Even the skinny AVR-X3700H, that is about the same as the SR6015, could output 100 WPC at 1% THD+N with 5 channel driven.
Denon AVR-X3700H AVR Review | Audio Science Review (ASR) Forum

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

Appreciate everyones responses and help.

To answer the questions:
Volume limit not set.
Both units were factory sealed and new.
Have not tried pure direct mode yet.
My understanding on the LFE setting is that it is not the crossover frequency. Setting the mains to small and 60 Hz is the x-over point? Not sure. Talked to SVS and they recommended 60-80 on the towers and 120 on the LFE. Had it all at 80 on initial setup, but was lacking, so changed to those recommendations.
The editor app is the first sound processor that didn't set my mains and center to large. Actually set everything to small and had the mains at 40 HZ. Obviously adjusted the numbers up to 60 HZ on mains and 80 Hz on center.
I seriously doubt I have two bad units, which is why I'm posting. I must be doing something wrong!

You are correct to leave lpf of lfe to 120.

 

[lovinthehd]

I'm really trying to like this Marantz, and willing to try whatever it takes to make it work and sound at least as good as the Onkyo. Onkyo gets a lot of flack, but they have a very specific sound, and to my ears have never seen it matched for movies only.

I've not found this brand "sound signature" to be a thing over the years at all. I've got two Denons, an Onkyo and a Sony avr now and a couple Pioneers before that (plus some 2ch separates of different brands) and I don't find there is a particular signature involved when compared on a basic level. Different dsp, settings and tools perhaps give it the possibilities for some uniqueness/difference, tho. I have interchanged the Onkyo and Denons a coupla times, I don't find them different (and I doubt I'd find Marantz different either, particularly compared to Denon as they share quite a bit) but they're all Audyssey equipped too as its an older Onkyo.

I wouldn't worry about the ACD (all channels driven) ratings, just not very real world useful. Altho can give you a general idea of limits of the power supply I suppose.

I wouldn't expect one setting to work for everything you listen to either, so experiment. Turn Audyssey off or use the other curves or play with the curves on the app and limit Audyssey to just the most important part, dealing with the bass (by limiting the app to say 300hz or so).

 

[340Cuda]

I've not found this brand "sound signature" to be a thing over the years at all. I've got two Denons, an Onkyo and a Sony avr now and a couple Pioneers before that (plus some 2ch separates of different brands) and I don't find there is a particular signature involved when compared on a basic level. Different dsp, settings and tools perhaps give it the possibilities for some uniqueness/difference, tho. I have interchanged the Onkyo and Denons a coupla times, I don't find them different (and I doubt I'd find Marantz different either, particularly compared to Denon as they share quite a bit) but they're all Audyssey equipped too as its an older Onkyo.

I wouldn't worry about the ACD (all channels driven) ratings, just not very real world useful. Altho can give you a general idea of limits of the power supply I suppose.

I wouldn't expect one setting to work for everything you listen to either, so experiment. Turn Audyssey off or use the other curves or play with the curves on the app and limit Audyssey to just the most important part, dealing with the bass (by limiting the app to say 300hz or so).

Thanks, that was my next plan. Watched the video from Gene on Audyssey about limiting from 200-300 Hz. I'll do a few of those and see what it sounds like. Maybe try the Harman curve, etc.. I feel like I need to mic it with REW to get an idea of what I'm truly dealing with?
Can I measure SPL with the Umik mic and app? To level match and see what my actual SPL is.

 

[lovinthehd]

Thanks, that was my next plan. Watched the video from Gene on Audyssey about limiting from 200-300 Hz. I'll do a few of those and see what it sounds like. Maybe try the Harman curve, etc.. I feel like I need to mic it with REW to get an idea of what I'm truly dealing with?
Can I measure SPL with the Umik mic and app? To level match and see what my actual SPL is.

Yes, to "see" what you're dealing with REW and a measurement mic would be a good investment. Yes, they can measure spl.

 

[Danzilla31]

I own onkyo for my bedroom setup and for some reason I liked them the best before they bit the dust.

They were always my favorite recievers and preamp back in the day. It's subjective I can't tell you why I just did

How far do you sit from your front stage? It sounds like you like it loud you like hitting that reference I can dig that too.

You may need to go with a power amp if your sitting too far back or the room is too large

Also onkyo has this feature called intellivolume which can boost the level on any input source and makes it sound a lot louder. You may have been experiencing that

I hate Audyssey on Denon I hate just about every room eq I've tried. I always feel they set volume levels too low. Just one of my many quirks

You may try turning off Audyssey doing your calibration manually with a good old fashioned laser measure spl meter turn off dynamic eq and Dolby volume and all that compression crap and see what you get

Also male sure all your source such as DVD streamers etc have any volume compression like Dolby volume or drc dynamic range compression turned to off that can mess with your volume as well

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I could go way louder on the Onkyo

1. Increase the Speaker Channel Level of all speakers to +6dB, Center to +9dB.

2. Turn Audyssey to Audyssey Bypass L/R.

3. Turn Dynamic EQ ON, Dynamic Volume Off.

4. Audyssey Reference Offset to 0.

Now everything will just sound a lot louder.

 

[340Cuda]

I ordered the UMIK mic. A few questions on this. I can take all the measurements (maybe with some guidance!), but can the Audessey editor app make changes not being a PEQ? I feel like I'm better off letting a professional do the calibration, is this something that can be done remotely? If so, any recommendations?

 

[PENG]

I ordered the UMIK mic. A few questions on this. I can take all the measurements (maybe with some guidance!), but can the Audessey editor app make changes not being a PEQ? I feel like I'm better off letting a professional do the calibration, is this something that can be done remotely? If so, any recommendations?

In my opinion the Editor App approach is better than PEQ, because with PEQ, such as with Yamaha's YPAO, you have to know what you are doing, like figuring out the best "Q" values and the number of filters you can create are very limited.

With the Audyssey App, you are basically giving Audyssey feedback as to what the actual results are after the Audyssey run so that Audyssey can re-do the filters for results closer to the original target. If you repeat the process (using REW) enough times, you will end up with a non flat target curve but a much flatter actual curve as measured by REW. So using the App, Audyssey is still in charge of creating the FIR filters, based on your input. FIR filters are inherently "better" (in relative term, and can't really generalize) than the IIR filters that YPAO and AARC (Anthem ARC) are based on. Anthem does have a new version so may be they are now "better" in some way.

In addition, my understanding of how the App work is (or could be just my imagination, or educate guess at best):

- Audyssey uses an ideal, flat target curve to create a set of filters.
- The filters created failed to achieve the goal, so the actual curve (not what the App, or the AVR show you, but the one you measured with REW and the Umik-1 mic. There are various reason outside the scope of this thread I guess.

- With the App, you can customize your own curve, so now you have the following 2 choices but not limited to just those two:

1) Just edit the curve to you taste and hope Audyssey will follow that curve, and you reached you goal, but you won't know until you measure it with REW, or

2) Don't just trust Audyssey 100% but use REW to verify the actual results and then use the App for improvements. If that's what you wish to do then you can basically try the following summarized steps:

a) Compare the original results after the Audyssey run as shown in the REW FR graph, with the flat curve (I would suggest choose the range from 20 Hz to about 200 Hz, but its your choice). Calculate the different offsets required, to bring the post Audyssey actual results.
b) Enter the required offsets (the theoretical numbers, by calculations) for say at least 20 frequency points for the 20-200 Hz range.
c) Save the file back to the App and then send it to the AVR.
d) Measure with REW again and compare the actual FR to the flat curve.
e) If the improvement is not good enough to you, then repeat the steps until you are happy or give up and accept the results as the best you can do, given the time you are willing to spend on this.
f) Now that you have a reasonably near flat curve, you can enter a few frequency points to increase the low bass gradually from say 120 Hz to 20 Hz if it is the so called "Harman" curve you prefer.

For steps b) and the subsequent repeats of the same, you should use the freeware Ratbuddyssey unless you are really good in drawing the curve directly on the screen with you fingers or touch pen.

If you are willing to follow the steps above, there is an Audyssey Editor App user's thread already:
The Audyssey MultEQ Editor app users thread (with facts and tips) | Audioholics Home Theater Forums

Or you can Google for a few good ones on the AVSForum.

 

[EdM0830]

Increase your input source level to max which is +12

 

[Golfx]

Sorry but I didn’t read where you followed PENG’s advice to reset to factory default. Have you done that yet? And then have you reloaded the updates afterwards?