Marantz AV8801 Preamp/Processor Official Owner's thread - Page 44

From the rip, when the 4311CI came out, (I pre-ordered), I hated by the sharp bright sound mine produced in music. Check my post history. SQ wise, the 8801 is better. No placebo over here.

Congrats Rosano! You're the first guy in Montreal that I know to own one. Please give us your impressions on the 8801 vs the Lex.

Would anybody who owns the AV8801 have an answer for the above question?
Wanting to get some idea what the 4K upscaling is like.

Unless you have a 4k TV which is at least 80"+ ... this feature won't matter, as your 1080p TV will only display at 1080p.

Call Robert at Value Electronics 800 789 5050 for a smoking deal!

I believe you are wasting your money. As an Electrical Engineer, with experience selling these cables in the consumer electronics industry, I can say with some confidence that you are paying for marketing and aesthetics, not R&D. Rather than taking this thread off course in a big debate about the merits of high end cables, I will leave it at that and not respond any further. Buy your cables based on the electrical specifications (conductivity, gauge, etc) and price per foot. Enjoy your 8801's everybody, mine is still on its way!

^^^
+1

Loving this receiver! The sound is so enveloping. The detail is incredible from my speakers. Not sure I even need new speakers anymore.

Did anybody have any added gain by using the XLR's over RCA's with the AV8801?

Is it OK to use an RCA cable for my sub, but XLR cables for my other 5 channels? Does this even make sense given the fact my sub cable run is 30 feet, and my other 5 channels 3 feet?

There's generally no advantage at cable distance < 10'.

I've got some BJC on the new surrounds I purchased to go with the 8801 and price is always a concern at 25' each and the 12 awg wire fits the bill nicely and is well made, As i tried to say earlier its not about price, but getting the job done well is my only concern and unfortunately sometimes that means spending more to which I have no problems with that , that's all I'm saying. I didn't at any point say you spent to little on your cables.

Now back to the subject at hand the well worth its price 8801;)

Network port #1 (the topmost port) doesn't work on my AV8801. Diagnostics says a cable isn't connected even though the cable is good (verified with other devices; I also tried other good cables). In fact, the LED next to port 1 doesn't light up. The other 3 ports work fine (I tested them; also a green blinking light lights up next to each of the ports 2 to 4).

Granted, I use a Gigabit switch, but it so happens all my home theater devices are 100 Mbps devices only.

Has anyone else had this problem or I have a one-off defect?

I have followed your posts GerominoUSMC re:4311 harsh bright SQ for music and have "heard" the same thing, been hesitant to post
about it too much...tried your suggestion to use Dolby Volume in one of your previous posts w/some success...done a few Audyssey calibrations
as well. Would love to hear if anyone has compared the 4520 to the 8801 vs 4311 irt "harsh, bright" SQ....thanks in advance.

Still getting used to trying to post on here, thanks for your input jdsmoothie. My 8801 is going to take a couple weeks to get here. A dealer out of Delaware is taking my Sunfire TGP-5 on a trade so it's a good deal for me.

Hey guys a quick question as i digest the manual a little more......and remember I am coming from a Lex that has a very easy to use setup as its very intuitive so bear with me. I have a few questions regarding the 8801 setup.In the manual speaker setup....its presented as speaker size...distance...levels and crossover.....in that order. In the lex its presented as speaker size...distance..crossovers and then levels which makes a little more sense. Regardless i will follow the 8801 sequence. Now the question is when the test tone is output by the 8801 is the level automatically output as 0db or do have to adjust it manually.....and is the tes tone level dispalyed anywhere? On the lex is was automatically set to 0 and then I adjust to 75db.I find it strange that the manual doesn't even make a mention of level adjustment to 75 db unless I am missing it somewhere which i probably am.Also how do you guys set your subs LFE or LFE+mains. I listen to mostly movies.

Please don't repond by saying just "let Audessy do it"....I will let Audessy do its thing but i want to play with it manually first.....

Thanks....

The test tone is a 75db test tone. The sub setting of LFE+Main only applies when the FL/FR speakers are set to LARGE which is not recommended, rather all speakers set to SMALL with a minimum of either 60 or 80Hz crossovers. To make manual speaker volume level adjustments will require using a SPL meter.

It is OK.  Whether it makes sense or not depends on your reasons.

This is good advice. I don't recommend cheap cables either, but Audioquest is far from cheap. I have Emotiva XLR's which are quite well made. I have a bunch of analog Audioquest cables that I'll probably sell (who uses component video?). I got the Audioquest for about 1/4 of the retail price and I still think I paid too much!

Thanks JDS.....no issues with speaker settings and SPL meter.....been doing this for years. Just wanted to know about the idiosyncronies of the unit.

If you have a 4K display then something will need to upsale to 4K anyway (Display, Prepro or Source). The question becomes which is the best place to upscale; Joerod compared the AV8801 to Onkyos 4K solution and thought the upscale slightly inferior but to be honest the only important part is that the AV8801 can do 4K passthrough and overlay.

Another vote for Emotiva XLRs over here. I found it difficult to source resasonably priced interconnects here, so I solved the problem by importing them from the States.

If all cables sound the same (once past a certain quality threshold), then the only thing differentiating them would be build quality, customer service quality and if you're shallow like me, looks. The Emotiva XLRs sure do look pretty, and were only $25 a pop. I too have some audioquest cables laying around, and for the price of that stereo pair I could've bought a full complement of 13 Emotiva XLRs.

3 words. Blue Jeans Cable.

No worries then ... tweak away.

hi all,
i'm thinking of upgrading my avr to pre/power,difficult to decide between this marantz 8801 and onkyo 5509,i'm more into movie,any helps here?

after reading audyssey 101,i told my sales person the same thing. he said i was wrong, and to try it with speakers set to large and lfe+main the way audyssey set it up so far i havent changed it back so far.

Of course you're welcome to use whatever setting you prefer, however, note that Audyssey didn't set your speakers to LARGE, rather the 8801 did that based on the -3db point passed to it from Audyssey. In fact if Audyssey (the company) had it's way, after running Audyssey, with a capable sub in the setup, the Audyssey software would set all speakers SMALL (as the Audyssey co-founder has mentioned many times in the Audyssey thread). However, sadly that is not the case and the AVR/pre mfrs generally set any speaker to LARGE if it's -3db point is < 50Hz. Setting the front mains to LARGE with the sub set to LFE+Main results in "double bass" (most likely preferred if you are used to bloated bass from an older model receiver) which most generally do not prefer once given a few weeks to adjust to the SMALL/80Hz or 60Hz setting.

also part of the reason we got in to it was i told him it seemed like wile listening to a cd there was not enough bass from the sub.