Problem with Marantz SR4200

Hello,

I just bought a Marantz SR4200 second hand at a good price. Of course I plugged it in as soon as I could, and then, big disappointment: no bass whatsoever. I read the manual, tried everything, but nothing helped. I did some research on the internet and could not find any satisfying reply. More in details:

I use only 2 speakers (I tried different ones, the current one are 200W "musical power" floorstading speakers). I also tried with Sony 160W and old 40W speakers. I plugged a discman (no dvd player yet, but it's on its way...), using both optical and analog cable. I also get the problem with the integrated tuner. In the settings, I set the front speakers to large, and everything else to none, including the subwoofer. Whether I set the subwoofer to yes or no doesn't make a difference in the sound output. The guy I bought it from assured me that it worked for him, and he only has a pair of BW 602.5, with no subwoofer. Now I'm completely desperate and I was hoping that someone here could help

Thanks in advance for any reply,
Franck.

It's not the amps fault, it's your speakers. And please don't look at how many watts a speaker will handle, whether it handles 20 or 200 watts it still doesn't determine how good/much bass it puts out or how good the speaker sounds. Otherwise you may be used to your old mini systems sound that had the bass boosted from about 80 to 150 hz to get more boom.

-Joey

This makes little sense - The Marantz 4300 I have does not present this problem. (While it's not as solid as I'd like in the bass it's about as good as one would expect from receivers). The unit does have some finnicky remote control options however which makes certain adjustments less than wonderful.

There should be some sort of bass level adjustment button. Moving the speakers closer to rear walls can add bass - most speakers also have a negative impact elsewhere though so be cautious with this.

You have all the speaker wires connected right too I would gather.

Well, I have some doubts about that speaker thing. I'm no audio professional, but those "200W" speakers are decent sized floorstanding speakers, and you would really expect them to output more bass than that. Also the 40W speakers I tried could output a lot more bass with my previous crap stereo than with this amp. I was really careful when i turned the volume up for the first time as I was expecting them to fall apart rather than not having enough to handle. I'm gonna buy decent speakers soon because this amp deserves that, but I'll take my amp to the shop first and test, because I have serious doubts that will make a difference.

Franck.

Hi Franck,

As I understand even when connecting a sub and setting sub as "Yes" you don't get anything out of the sub. I don't know what's the deal about not having bass from your mains but in order to produce bass from the sub you could try this.
You need to make sure the LFE settings is NOT off. If you don't know how to set the LFE follow this.
Using the remote, press the following buttons:
AMP
Menu
Down Arrow
Down Arrow
Down Arrow
Right Arrow

Now using the UP/DOWN arrows you can set the LFE to OFF/0/-10.

Hope it helps.