For Marantz Cinema 40 & 50 Dirac Live 2023 March after firmware update (Phase 1)
- Limited Bandwith 259$
- Full Bandwith 349$
Dirac Live Bass Control - 2024/Q1 - TBD (Phase 2)
- Single sub 349$
- Multisub 499$
All-in-one package - 2024/Q1 - TBD (Phase 2)
- Full correction + single bass control 649$
- Full correction + multi sub bass control 799$
Ti and ESS Dacs. They keeping eye for AKM.
Sound United has put out Marantz information clip about the new products. Also Q&A at the end of video.
@PENG might want to listen the part "The most musical sound" and HDAM chip comparison = Cinema 60 graphs showing lower THD and where the HDAM module is placed.
Thank you for the update, and for you, I thought I would kill a few minutes and read the damn thing (I mean the HDAM
), Same BS is what it is! I think they actually believe in what they said though. It also has the effect, intended or not, of preconditioning the not so technical and/or not so logically oriented general public to listen for, hear and therefore heard the benefits of HDAMs. In some way, those marketing people can be like politicians, they likely know people will most likely believe what they say if they can give them some technical reasons whether the seemingly technical reasons make sense of not.
I like the fact that in this video they show you the block diagrams so if you apply simple logic, and can see that no matter how "fast" the discrete HDAM is, say it does not introduce any delay, such as slew rate if infinite, because it takes the signal from the DAC and the volume chip (that is an IC, not discrete), so whatever delay there is, would have already been baked in, the best this extra buffer stage can do it not to make it worse!! To understand that, one has to be used to reading such block diagrams, and has the ability to think logically, with or without some basic electrical/electronic knowledge.
Same for distortions and noise, the best this thing can do is not to add, but it cannot reduce distortions and noise. The soundmaster thing is downright silly, they have them for both Marantz and Denon so presumably each tune for their own intended sound signature, yet Marantz has the discrete HDAM board they can tune (according to the presenter of the video), implying it cannot be tuned without the HDAM?
And if they tune the HDAM board for a different sound and reduce distortions, how come they cannot show the measured results? The specs still show 0.08% THD+N, 20-20,000 Hz for the C50 and presumably 0.05% for the C40, following the trend set by the SR6000 and SR7000, Denon AVR-X3000, X4000 series. We can say THD+N is not a good indicator for sound quality, but if they claim HDAMs reduce or improve distortions they should be able to show the measured results regardless of correlation or not. That's again, just simple logic!
In all bench measurements by Gene, Amir and whoever did those for HTHF show Marantz AVRs in the past have virtually flat frequency response from 20 to 20,000 Hz, may be down a couple dB at 20 kHz if digital inputs are used for sampling rate lower than 48 kHz, THD less than 0.08%. Those metrics indicate FR and distortions should be below the threshold of audibility. If the HDAM board is as good (audibly) as they claim, SU should offer it as an option or better still, sell them as an external buffer box and potentially make a lot of money on them.
If the HDAM boards are improved versions of the ones used before, it could improve on distortions and noise by adding less of it (sadly the truth, again, don't need to know electronics, just logic), and will therefore sound different to those with golden ears, better or not would depend.
Above are obviously just my opinion based on logic.
