Marantz AV7005 - Page 304

Well of course, people who have Bose or iPad docks have no bias, just no taste.

The more inaccuracies you have in your equipment or room, the more corrections your Audyssey software type stuff has to make. IMHO, it's better to have an accurate source, because processing matters. Way back I had a cool Yamaha receiver which had processing to give you 'concert hall', 'stadium', etc, sound. My musician bro-in-law would always take them out, saying they just mess with the music as the performer intended it to be. Along these lines, many folks listen to their music in the 'pure' or 'passthrough' mode & find that to their preference; they would rather listen to the music rather than the processors.
I hear you about the speakers (do you frequent the Parts Express Speaker Builder forum?)! This is why I am going to bring my speakers to a v. good builder who can mike them & make an xover design for me. The xover I made is...meh. After measurements, I can fine tune to my liking & ear biases. Again, I find this approach to be preferable to having some processors tell me what sounds best to me & my individual ears.
And of course, some like rap (more bass?), some like classical, some jazz vocals, etc. This will influence how you tune your system or speakers. Unfortunately, I like classic rock, punk, jazz & classical. What's a poor boy to do?!

Murf

PS: room treatments:
Sheepskin corner trap
Corner panels
Acoustic foam on all furniture backs & undersides
Ming Aurilia
And a nice rug with underpadding

Murf



Edited by vanguardtm - 2/2/13 at 9:34am

My bet is you have accidentally engaged "speakers B" instead of "speakers A". The fifth, horizontal button under the front panel will fix that.

Don't know but don't think so because none of them recommended an AV7005! (owner bias at play)
But do you own, or are you familiar with many Cary or AVA pre's or pre/pros?

Murf

In all the decades I have worked in audio, I can tell you that the biggest jump in my understanding is when I accepted the fact that everyone, without exception, even me, is biased, sometimes merely at a subconscious level, and therefor the only tests which are scientifically valid (and therefor worthy of consideration) are ones which preclude such biases: blind, or better still, double-blind.

When you come to understand and accept this fundamental principal, you will have taken a gigantic leap in your personal pursuit of the truth, AKA "science".

Well, I'm going to go check. If it's this easy to fix, then I owe you a 6 pack of your favorite craft beer.

Un-be-liev-able.

Much appreciated. Very much.

Brief comment on the line level 2 channel pre debate: there is nothing "wrong" with any given pre, but I'd caution against dismissing the hi-end. I have a Cary SLP-05 for my hi-end 2 channel system. I didn't just go out and blind buy. I've had many pre-amps over the years and I've slowly but surely reached a pretty high level. The difference between the SLP-05 and an entry level is indeed the proverbial night/day difference. Heck, the leap from my SLP-98, which is ridiculously good, to the SLP-05 blew my mind. True fully balanced circuitry designed by Dennis Had with a separate tube rectified power supply, etc actually makes an enormous impact on the sound quality.

I'd be happy to entertain a forum guest should the curiosity become too much.

I've never heard the Cary piece you have, vanguardtm, however more importantly I am quite knowledgeable about how to interpret third party technical audio specs in terms of what is significant to human perception, and what is not. The Cary measures quite well and there is nothing out of the ordinary which I would worry would in any real-world situation alter the sound negatively, but then again the same goes for the Marantz. If you never engage the Audyssey circuit I doubt you'd hear much of a difference between the two at all,[nor would anyone] so I would say there is no good reason to switch to the Marantz if you don't expect to use Audyssey or any of the other features it offers.

I agree Yamaha's "Concert hall" mode is rather silly and objectionable {I've owned it], but don't confuse Audyssey with that. "Concert Hall" engages echos and reverberations which the original artists and their recording engineers never intended you to hear; it is therefor a bastardization of the original artists' intent. Audyssey room correction, however, corrects for deficiencies with your room and speaker placement, which all of us have even with $10,000 speakers and highly modified rooms. Having a flat frequency response is something that the recording engineers were at least hoping you'll have, so in this way we are actually reproducing the music with a higher fidelity by using the circuit.[Not that I'm claiming it is "perfect", but you can easily turn it on or off at will]

{I personally don't use any of the extras of Audyssey such as "Dyn Eq" or "Dyn Vol." I leave all that extra stuff off.]
Edited by m. zillch - 2/2/13 at 10:29am

I have an AV7095 for about a year. I dont see a place to display the current firmware version, but there's me available (again not telling you what version).

The issue I am having is with the porthole viewer. In some, but not all of the modes, the text displaying what mode you are in has some pixels that are dimmed. The ones I use regularly are fine (TV/DVD/BD) are all fine, but others such as net/USB, AUX1, HD Radio, and a few others, have this issue where some of the pixels are dimmed down. I can't be 100% sure, but. Believe it's ot actually bad pixels. It appears some of the pixels that are dimmed on one mode are bright on others, though it's ha,rd to be sure.

Soil it's it bad pixels, is it a firmware issue? I usual fall to "don't fix what isn't broke" with firmware updates so haven't done this latest, though I believe I did one when I first received the processor.

Has anyone seen this or heard of it? Known issue or firmware issue?

Any thoughts or insight is appreciated.

Question regarding hooking up a powered subwoofer to a marantz AV7005....

I've got a (Sherbourne) 7 channel power amplifier connected to the AV7005 via the balanced XLR connections. However my subwoofer does not have balanced input only LFE in and line in. Can I connect the SW1 out on the unbalanced pre-out terminal of the AV7005 while the rest of the channels are going through the balanced Pre Out terminal?

If I cannot I assum there is a XLR to coax conversion cable/connector or something I can use?

Help!

Thnx

Yes

If they illuminate under some conditions, they obviously aren't dead. It might be a loose connection. I'd try wacking the screen with my finger to see if that fixes or at least temporarily changes the condition. If it does, then it is a loose connection. Get it fixed under the three year warranty.

Does anyone know the differences between the AV7005 and AV7701 other than the 4k video? Marantz website won't let you compare the two.

$381

[ according to an authorized dealer selling a few refurbs, which sells accessories for less.]

I listen to my records in pure direct mode and it sounds amazing. My record player is connected with RCA cables and I was always under the impression that this is a pure Analog signal. I couldn't imagine buying another preamp just to listen to my left and right speakers. But I could imagine buying some new speakers to compliment my new AV7005. On a side note I hear a slight buzz coming from my speakers even when my preamp is turned off. Is this normal does anybody else experience this. I think maybe it could be my amplifiers (marantz ma500).

It is not normal.

Turn off the amp. Disconnect the amp's cables from the preamp. Short across the now free ends of the cables. Turn on the amp. Do you hear the buzz? If so, it's the amp. If not, proceed to next test.

Without removing the shorts, connect the ground to the audio ground on the preamp. You can just hold it there for a moment. Does the buzz come back? If so, there's a ground difference between the amp and the preamp. It may be coming from a source, like the cable TV box. We can discuss more after you reply with your findings.

Well then I may just buy a 7005 then if that is the only difference between the 7005 and 7701.

There are a few other differences but I don't know them all. The newer one has an extra "zone 2" HDMI out, I see, although there may be qualifications which make it not as fully functional as you would like. There's no optical out on the new one, oddly, but that had big limitations on the AV7005 anyways [PCM stereo 2.0 passthrough only, no 5.1 stuff, no transcoding from HDMI, etc.]

Often looking at the two units' rear aprons [ I beg your pardon!] tells you more than the ads do.

There are indeed a few minor differences (described in this or the AV7701 thread), but for $400 I don't think it's worth the difference. Sonically they're 99.99% the same.

The problem is that almost no one in the consumer market has the time or ability to easily calibrate any consumer equipment they have bought to such exacting standards as you continually mention regardless of this being the AV *SCIENCE* forum. Even if one could set up their equipment so that it's all level matched, yadda yadda yadda, their actual human hearing may not be able to discern any differences several percentage points away from the theoretical anyway. I know my hearing can't tell much difference when various settings are changed on my equipment anyway so I am not concerned with theoretical perfection in order to compare. Sure, I understand there's bias but the best I can do is know it's there and try to ignore it as much as possible.

So, while bias is indeed there, the actual human has to still ultimately decide what sounds best to them and, if that's slightly biased then so be it. All one can reasonably and reliably do is use whatever they have at their disposal to level set their equipment and decide, even if biased, what sounds better. In my testing, I DO use a usually lambasted Radio Shack SPL meter with which I've set up both my Sherwood Newcastle AVP9080 and Marantz AV7005 such that they both register alike to the SPL meter and ultimately sound alike to me. That's without level matching to the nth degree or running double blind tests. They both sound the same no matter which one I listen to. Is that scientific? Is that perfectly level matched? Is it according to a true double blind test? No, not at all. It's just really good set up using a cheap SPL and the fact my ears are not and can not be perfect. They both sound the same and that's good enough for me.

The only major difference I can discern is when using Audyssey on CDs which I've mentioned before where it tends to add a slight out of phase component to the sound. That can only be due to the timings it's calculated since I don't hear it when it's off or when using the AVP9080. That has nothing to do with bias or level matching or anything other than Audyssey changing the speed at which one speaker's output reaches my ears.

What does this all really mean? That both the older AVP9080 is every bit as good as the AV7005, the AV7005 does not buy me any better sound quality over and above the AVP9080 and both purchases were very good bargains. The only advantage of the AV7005 over the AVP9080 is that it has more inputs (primarily HDMI) and can process newer formats the AVP9080 can't which is the whole reason I bought the Marantz.

Bias? Sure. Sound "quality" regardless of bias or "proper" level matching? Probably no real difference between the two. Sound "quality" if no bias and "proper" level matching? Probably no real difference that's worth arguing over. Perceived sound quality by my 49 year old ears? Yeah, both components sound great to me. Indeed, my way old crappy Sony receiver sounds fine too. There's really no major difference between them all when the SPL is set the same between them.

Ultimately, regardless of any bias that exists and in spite of not being scientific about it, both of my pre-processors sound great to me and that's all that really matters.

Roger what do you mean when you say "Short across the now free ends of the cables" should I take the free ends and touch them together?

No. Each cable has, presumably, an RCA plug. Connect the pin to the sleeve. Do that for each cable.

Roger I thought of myself as pretty tech savy but I'm completely lost. What sleeve are you talking about. can you please explain this to me like I am a four year old. Thanks Roger

Im totally over thinking this. Just touch the pin to sleeve. Got it. So here is what happened. As soon as I took the RCA out from the AV7005 the buzzing got louder. Touching the pin all over the sleeve did nothing. As soon as I connected the RCA back to the AV7005 the buzz got quieter.

pin is also called "tip"

Here we go. Thanks for the pic I was not touching the pin to the sleeve but rather the cable itself. When I touch the pin to the sleeve the buzzing stops or at least gets better. According to Roger this means the amp is good. Roger says to next

"Without removing the shorts, connect the ground to the audio ground on the preamp. You can just hold it there for a moment. Does the buzz come back? If so, there's a ground difference between the amp and the preamp. It may be coming from a source, like the cable TV box. We can discuss more after you reply with your findings."

So what should I be doing here. Do I need a ground wire? Or just use the RCA cable again? Where is the ground on the preamp?

Thanks, Mr. Zillh, for the lovely photo!
So far, so good, assuming we use the "buzz stops" part of the reply.
No new wires needed. With the short still across the connector, touch it (the pin, the sleeve, or the shorting thingy, doesn't matter as they are all connected) to one of the RCA jacks on the AVR -- just to the outer collar where the sleeve normally touches.

Does the buzz remain silent?

If you mean one end of the RCA in the amp and the other end touching the outer collar of the AV7005 then no the buzz does not go away it is actually louder than if just plugged in normally.
I did hook up an old preamp to see what would happen and it is dead silent. I just hooked up the old preamp and one amplier and one speaker. When the old preamp was off there was buzzing but when I turned the old preamp on dead silent. Now I'm in the process of unplugging all my components one by one to see if I can track down a weak link in the chain.

Thanks for all your help I figured it out. If I plug my amp and my receiver into the same outlet the buzzing stops. I can still hear it if I put my ear right next to the tweater but its a lot better than it was. I also found out I'm kinda deaf in my left ear, that is when I put my left ear up to the speaker everything is nice and clean very quiet no buzzing, but when I put my right ear up to the speaker I can hear a very faint buzzing. That buzzing was driving me crazy even though when I turned up the volume I couldn't hear it I knew it was there lingering in the background making my music dirty and not as clean as it should be. Thanks again for all the replies.

Hey guys, I'm new to this thread as I just picked up an AV7005 over the weekend. After cabling everything up, I have a few questions. I apologize if they have previously been answered in this long thread.

1. I ran Audyssey twice and both times it seems like the bass is WAAY too high. My subwoofer IS the weak spot in my HT, but other than turning the sub down manually, I was surprised at how loud it set it to. My receiver this replaced (Onkyo TX-SR805) that I was using as a pre-amp with my two amps, typically turned the bass way too low, so I was surprised to have the complete opposite effect. The receiver like the AV7005 had the same Audyssey "version" if you will (MultEQ XT). Any thoughts as to why this happened. It's not the end world as I just turned the volume on my sub down (it's at about 1/2 gain).

2. Second issue is probably a call to Marantz as I can think of no reason as to why this would happen. Occasionally, the menu and arrow keys on the stock remote will not work. For instance, I was in the Audyssey setup and could not arrow down for "measure", "retry" "next", "calculate", etc. I had to use the button on the pre/pro itself to get through the process. But other times it works. Is there some sequence of keys that disables this functionality (because its driving me crazy) or did I just get a faulty remote.

3. The Marantz apps for iOS devices. I have the pre/pro set with a static IP and the app works when AV7005 is on, but when I turn it off, I can not turn it back on from Standby. Is this normal? I figured in Standby, it would still respond, but that doesn't appear to be the case for me. Is there some port(s) that I need to enable in my router?

Thanks in advance.
Brian