Marantz SR5008 intial impressions

[topspeed]

The Marantz has had a week to settle in, so I thought I'd give some initial impressions.

Appearance, Fit & Finish:
While sound quality is the overriding raison de vivre for anyone on this forum, aesthetics never hurt. By forgoing the standard squared aluminum face, Marantz has crafted one of the nicer looking AVR's out there with a gently curved faceplate and clean dual-dial layout. It's a shame they relegated the pretty blue halo on the center display to the kingfish 7008, but it's still sports a high WAF. That display by the way, is almost comically small so get used to using the OSD to see what's going on.

The unit is surprisingly light, especially as I don't believe it utilizes Class D amps. Considerably more lithe than the outgoing Denon (22 lbs vs 36 lbs!), whether this is the benefits of advancements in technology or building to a cost instead of a standard has yet to be seen. Here's hoping for the former.

Set-up:
Wow, have times changed from 10 years ago when I had to pull out a calibration disc and my trusty Radio Shack SPL meter! The 5008 comes equipped with Audyssey MultEQ XT, so you put the little mic where the screen tells you (8 different locations throughout the seating area) and let it do it's thing. It even walks you step by step on the wiring and where it is on the back panel. A monkey could do this. Thankfully, this monkey still knew how to wire everything and set-up took about 30 minutes from wiring the first cable to finishing room calibration. If you've got it networked, it will even print out the room calibration data for gear geeks to pour over. Simple.

Video:
I'm not a videophile. It looks great and assigning sources was a cake walk using the set-up assistant on the OSD. It has 4K upscaling, but I don't have one of those (yet) so no opinion.

Audio:
The 5008 only drives the center and two surrounds with the mains powered by a PS Audio HCA2, therefore impressions are somewhat limited. The dynamic capability of the avr so far is effortless. On The Avengers BluRay, the surround effects were impressively detailed with extended highs and clear, clean dialogue from the center. At first blush, the sound was noticeably thinner than my 10 year old Denon, but it has bloomed nicely as the hours start piling up on the amps and it is revealing a sound quality not unlike the 50 year old 2230B powering my bedroom system: warm and musical. There was a noticeable hum coming from the speakers which is becoming less prevalent as time passes. If it persists, I may try a cheater plug on the ground to see if this alleviates the problem, but I doubt I'll need to.

The system includes a "Pure" feature, borrowed wholesale from Denon, which shuts down all video and display processing in an effort to turn the avr into a reasonable facsimile of a passive pre. Once chosen, music has a more analog quality that I find very appealing. Warmer and more engaging, the sound takes on a more natural tone with more body than before.

Features:
Unfortunately, I have neither the the time nor the desire to really fiddle with everything this sucker does. It has networking capability, Airplay, and a bunch of features made to confuse the beejeezus out of old, analog, two channel guys like myself. Everything is automatic and changing surround parameters does require diving deeper into the menus than I would like, but it's fairly intuitive. There is an app to control the system that I have not installed that received 2 of 5 stars from users. It also has a function called MDAX that supposedly "adds life back to compressed music." I tried it and all it added was a shrill, sibilant quality to the tone that gave the sound the musical equivalent of listening to Ke$ha; unbearable. MDAX comes from the factory shut off, leave it that way.

Overall, it's a nice piece for not a lot of coin. It won't do Zone 2 video or digital in for SACD's, for that you need the 6008. If you need either feature, pony up the $300 difference. I was very pleased with the service received from the authorized Marantz retailer on ebay. If you're looking for one, check him out.
http://www.ebay.com/usr/echo-and-optics

[Mr Peabody]

Glad you are enjoying the receiver and nice report

[senojhrj1]

Topspeed, I looked at the authorized dealers on the Marantz website, and I did not find Echo and Optics on the list.

I plan to buy a Marantz receiver and I saw the prices are discounted by Echo and Optics.

Have you registered your receiver with Marantz? Did you learn other facts about Echo and Optics in your conversations with them?

Thanks for your help. Harry

[topspeed]

The Marantz is registered with the manufacturer and I've even used their tech support with no issues whatsoever. It came with an extended warranty as well, although I can't remember the company and if you really want one, you can get SquareTrade from Costco for cheap.

Hope this helps

[harley .guy07]

I am glad that you like this unit as I have just ordered one my self a few days ago to replace my aging Yamaha because I was getting tired of trying to "work around" my Yamaha not having HDMI ports. I am trying to cut the cord from satellite and start streaming content to save on my monthly monetary output for tv and with my media server pc an HDMI out and so does everything else so it just makes sense to simplify things and get the most out of things as well as hopefully upgrading performance since it seems Marantz it at the top of their game sound quality wise with their units, and they are better looking and simple to use as well.

[harley .guy07]

So far my opinions of my 5008 are the same as above as I also am using it mostly as a preamp processor with the center channel being the only speaker being powered by it. It seems to be built well, sound very good, and is the easiest receiver I have ever set up. So far so good!