On the negative side, the remote feels tacky and plasticky. You need to get out of playback to change any settings on the receiver. I haven't yet found my way around with the android control app - it's gorgeous but i find it confusing.
The Android App is supposed to be excellent. Do use it and see if you can get used to it.
The Marantz Review
I am now thoroughly confused and, at the same time, near the end of my decision making.
Last evening, I landed at Cinebels on Moors Road in Nungambakkam. I was received by Mr. Satish Kumar, an extremely pleasant and knowledgeable gentleman.
I gave him a run-down of my requirements. They had a Marantz 7008 connected to Klipsch Reference 5.1 speaker set with a SW-115 sub woofer. The sub was monstrous enough to shake the walls in the demo room. For display they had a Vivitek projector and a 120 inch screen. The demo room was well set up, though they did not seem to have enough demo material.
I thought I will start with The Hunted, but the 3D Blu-ray player they had refused to play my DVD. My DVD was a Region 1 version, and I think the player was Region 3. Satish asked one of his assistants to take The Hunted to another demo room and try it there. In the meantime, we started with The Avengers Blu-ray disk.
The sound was very similar to that of the Denon, albeit a little softer. The dialogs were a mite clearer. But the best were two - one; the LFE was much better, and the video was far better. I am not sure this was because of the projector or the processing of the 7008. Either way, the images were both smoother and sharper.
The heavy breathing of Loki and Jackson as they sparred in the room was clearly audible. When the Tessaract opened up just before Loki's arrival, the sound had more weight. Through the first chapter, small sounds of background music were clearly audible, adding to the effect of the video. When Jackson walks down the long staircase to go where the Tessaract is held, you could hear his voice echoing and disappearing slowly. More important, the clarity of dialogs was phenomenal. You could understand each word clearly.
When Nick Fury goes down to the room where the Tessaract is being experimented on, he greets Dr. Selvig. Selvig moves away from the machine he is working on and just says 'Director'. Maybe because Stellan Skarsgrd (who plays Selvig) is a Swede, I always have to strain myself to understand the word. In the Marantz, the word was very clear and understandable.
By this time, Satish's assistant had brought down the other player that could play my The Hunted. Connecting that to the 7008, we started with Chapter 3 - No reverence. The crunch of twigs was clear as was the weight of the waterfall. Just like the Avengers, the sound of birds chirping was highlighted well and you could clearly hear the shriek of a bird as the hunters walked past the waterfall. This was over the rush of the waterfall and, to me, it sounded as if I heard that shriek for the first time. The image of the forest, with all it's sound was well presented by the 7008.
When Aaron starts circling around the hunters, his whispers were clearer and were what they were - whispers. The flight of the knife was slightly longer as you could hear it whoosing through the air.
Only two sounds were a little disappointing as compared to the Denon and Pioneer. When the knife thuds into the tree, I felt the sound was a little softer as the knife slices into the tree. And, when the hunter fires the first shot, the sound of the gun and it's reverberation through the forest was both shorter and softer. I like shorter decays in sound, so I am fine with it.
When Rabba was played, I requested Satish to use Pure Direct. The music was a bit softer as compared to both the Denon and Pioneer. Other than that, the sound was good, the separation was good, and the drum beats pleasant and un-exaggerated. The light tininess I heard in Arijiths voice was completely absent.
The Marantz uses a Burr-Brown DAC and so does my Asus Xonar STX that I hear regularly. Could that be the reason?
The choices now are Denon 2200, Marantz 5010 and the Denon 3200. The specs of the 5010 and 3200 are nearly identical as is the power output. Over the 2200, both have nearly 30 watts of additional power, HDR, and BT.2020 in video processing. The 5010 is priced nicely in between the two Denons. I did look at the 6010, but that is overspecced and is too expensive. As I said before, if I have to spend close to 100,000, I will go for the Pioneer 59.
I will most probably order the 5010 tomorrow.
Thanks for all your help.
Cheers
