Marantz SR4001/5001/7001/8001 - Page 90

Except I beat you by $30 back in October. Seriously, enjoy the 7001. It's a great unit. Also, since the refurbs only come with a 1 year warranty, you might want to investigate a extended warranty as well. I was able to pick up a Mack warranty for around $20.

Quick question;

When I plug in my headphones into my 7001 sound still comes out of my speakers. I do use the pre-outs and can kill the sound by turning off the Emotiva, but I am not sure this is normal. Can anyone help with this?

I'd get a warranty!! I did not, with a Marantz SR7500 a few years back from Tech4Less. It worked for a year or so, died. Spent a bunch getting it "repaired" at Marantz authorized repair center, still didn't work, finally threw it out after spending almost what a new one with a 3 year warranty would have cost. Bought a 7001 new from the local dealer at it's end of life as new cycle, $999, 3 year warranty. This one will never stop working, my guess!!!

I too would get an extended warranty on a refurb. My 7001 refurb has been acting squirrely for the last 6 months or so - conveniently just outside the warranty window.

Will be buying a new PS3 just to test what component is the misbehaving one. Ugh..

I completely agree with Mark. I too just picked up a SR7001 from the same dealer. Right now I have my Rega Apollo hooked up to it and when using Pure Direct, the SR7001 really makes my Paradigm Studio 20's sing. Every sound coming out of the 20's is better in every way, detail, clarity, bass, imaging, soundstage, everything. I was previously using a Denon AVR-687, which was my first AVR.

Agreed. I had problems with my SR8001 just before the one year expired. I sent it to one dealer to have it fixed and it came back with the same problem. They said they couldn't duplicate it (sure). By the time I could get it to another dealer the warranty had run out, but Marantz said it was cool since the original repair attempt was within the warranty period. But it was close. I wish I shelled out the extra $20-$30.

A late thank you,

This is what I originally feared. I guess I'd have to use a y adapter to combine the stereo L+R pre-outs to mono for the single input on my sub. Well, I'm waiting on a decent table right now anyway. But I think I'll ask Marantz to find out for sure how the crossover is employed. I may be best off using the sub's crossover. I like the blend I have now around at 80Hz, and I don't want too much bass going to my mains, they're only Sierra-1's.

p.s. hope you're enjoying your 7001!!!!

+2

In response to a post I made regarding whether or not one can use a sub with the 8001 in a way that doesn't involve any digital processing:


I asked Marantz about whether the crossover in the 8001 is analog or if it is a digital process, this was the response:

"Pure Direct gets rid of any additional processing, so it will give you 2 channel sound which is how music is recorded. There is no 2.1 coming from the turntable, so if you wanted base, you would have to deactivate pure direct so the receiver is allowed to process the sound to "simulate" subwoofer information."

"simulate" subwoofer information? What the hell is that? Turntables are well capable of reproducing frequencies down into subwoofer range. Anyway, the process appears to be quite digital. I was hoping to use the crossover on my sub, which has speaker connections, but sadly, the crossover only effects the sub, the mains would still be full range. I'd like to have a full crossover and allow the sub to deal with everything under 80Hz. Has anyone had any luck with a separate crossover? Does anyone else care about this ?

Forget the pure mode and just use "double base".

??????

I care! Seriously, this is a worthy goal. If you want to do bass management in the analog domain, there are many products out there that will do the job. Personally, I used a Soundtech x234 for a while. It is a pro-audio product. Google 'analog bass management' and I'm sure some results will pop up.

One product that comes to mind is the Emotiva pre-amp, but of course then you need a separate power amp, and your Marantz x001 would be relegated to home theater use only. Check it out on the Emotiva web site.

Cheers,
Mark

Last year I purchased a Marantz 5002 for my home theater system. It came with a very difficult and technical manual. I still don't understand it. Due to Hurricane Charly, I am using two Bose 301 front speakers, a Bose center speaker, and the Bose Acoustimass passive subwoofer. For the rear speakers I have a pair of 100 watt JBL Control ONe's. I am using the Brighthouse Scientific Atlanta DVR. I am disabled and had a fried hook up the speakers and equipment using the HDMI connections. All heck broke loose. I had crackling and squeaking noises from the rear JBL's and the 5002 shut down. After a few unsuccessful tries, I called Marantz and their technician had me go through some various permutations and told me it needed to be repaired. I sent the 5002 to Atlanta for repairs. I live in Tampa, FL and Atlanta was the nearest authorized repair shop. While I was waiting, I went back to my old Sony receiver and had no problems. When the Marantz 5002 came back, we set it all up and had the same problems. As long as the volume was set low, I had no crackling from the rear jbl's but I started having problems with the sound going off and on. I had the Brighthouse technicians come over and they tried many, many, different connections from using the red, green, & blue cables, to the red and white cables, and many various permutations. I have had over 11 techs from Brighthouse try to fix the situation.

I now, after 15 month, learned that the Marantz 5002 is probably incompatable with the Bose Acoustimass Passive subwoofer system. Can anyone out there verify this and help with a solution. I'll be glad to try and answer any technical questions. Please know first hand that I am an idiot when it comes to electronics and it takes me a bit of time to crawl around and change cables. But right now I'd piss on a spark plug if someone can help me figure this all out. Thanks and have a great day!

I've never run my sr7001 receiver (or any amp) as a pre before. I just bought an amp and woud like to know how to connect a 2 channel source to the sr7001 to amp. Is there a button I need to press to enable the pre function? Thanks!!

Sorry to take so long to get back to you.
If you don't want use Marantz's crossover,
you should still be able to use the sub.
There should be four pairs of binding posts on the sub.
Two pair in from the Marantz.
Two pair out to the speakers. Use the xover on the sub.

I thought this would never happen to me, but the marantz sr7001 I bought is stuck in protect mode for the 3rd time. For the first 2 times, I brought it to repair center to get it fixed. Now with only six days before the warranty expires, I'm very afraid that this will happen again after the warranty is over. Should I talk to marantz about having a possible replacement?

Check the speaker cables from end to end.

Going into protect mode usually is caused by shorts in the speaker cables. Strands of the +/- cables might be intermittently coming into contact with one another at the connectors or a pet or rodent might have chewed on the cables.

Another cause is trying to drive speakers which have a lower impedance than the receiver's amplifier section is designed to drive. It might work OK at a low sound level, but turning up the volume will make the receiver to go into protect mode. This can be compensated for by using appropriate external amplifiers.

Or, of course, the receiver's amp section might simply be failing, perhaps due to overheating for too long.

I don't have any cables connected to the unit and the unit still won't turned on. The speakers I'm using don't have low impedance. It didn't feel like the unit was overheating right before going to protected mode. Has anyone here had the same recurring problem as me? Has anyone talked to marantz for a permanent solution? Thanks.

Are you getting a red flashing power light when it's plugged in and you can't power up the receiver? I've had that happen a couple of times due to what I think were power fluctuations...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...3#post17622593

Audyssey "problems". I finally got surround speakers (been using 3.1 for over a year). I did a six point audyssey set up, but there seems to be a problem. When I try to use any of the EQ settings the sub does virtually nothing. With no EQ the sub is fine. After calibration, I changed all the speakers to small. With the "Audyssey" EQ the speakers blend a little better in the sense that it is less obvious that there are five individual speakers, but the sound is tinny and thin, and there's almost no bass. What have I done wrong??

Not only that, but the calibration put the sub at like, -6, to get a decent blend even with no EQ, I had to raise it to +6!!

Go to the the official Audyssey forum and look at the FAQ. It's in the first post.

Yeah, that's my current plan . . . basically. Unfortunately the crossover on the sub only effects the sub, the speakers still are set to full. But Ascend makes a plug for the port hole of the Sierra-1 that creates a smooth roll-off at 60Hz. So I can just dial in 60Hz or so on the sub for the HPF and all should be well. The thing is, I want to use bass management for all digital sources so I don't want my speakers hooked up that way. So, to avoid a lot of cable switching just to listen in pure direct with the sub I have devised a scheme. I don't have the cables to test it yet , but I figure I can keep my mains hooked up as "speaker A" and hook up the sub using "speaker B" (with no speakers connected to it). When I want to use pure direct I just turn on speaker A and B together and I'll have the sub. Since the RCA sub output is disabled when in pure direct, the two inputs won't conflict. I just have to make sure that before I switch out of pure direct that I switch speaker B off. This should work.

Thanks, but I've been there. It helped with setting everything up, but the sub behavior I'm experiencing doesn't seem to show up anywhere.

Are you sure you're adding the +10dB boost? I can't remember of the top of my head, but the choices are either 0 and +10dB (choose +10dB) or -10dB and 0dB (choose 0dB).

it's -10db and 0db . . . I'm on 0db

2 channel Pure direct mode vs. stereo mode

I'm experiencing what seems to be a a huge difference in sound between pure direct and stereo mode while playing cd's (oppo 983). Bass management aside (which I actually have worked out pretty well), the stereo imaging, soundstage, warmth, and virtually everything else seem to me to be dramatically different. In stereo mode, the soundstage is nice and wide and the overall sound is more full with great midrange detail. In pure direct it seems like the sound is sucked to the center of the soundstage, there's less "excitement" in the imaging, it's tinny, and it sounds thin in the midrange.

I am not using any of the EQ options as far as I can tell, so I'm not sure why the sound is so different. I'm using Ascend Acoustics Sierra-1's and a Hsu STF-2 sub.

El Espectro,

What's the room like where you are listening?
Are you sure Audyssey is turned off?
Are you sure you have "loudness" disabled in stereo mode?

Your symptoms seem to be to be consistent with Audyssey doing a very good job of equalizing your speakers to your listening room's acoustics and/or that the loudness frequency contour is compensating for low listening levels.

In Direct modes, no audio processing of any kind is applied to the audio signals. As a result, they sound best with full-range speakers in a carefully designed, quality listening environment at reasonably high volumes.

FWIW, the frequency response curves on Ascend's web site suggest to me that your speakers aren't quite what I would be willing to call full range. They probably should be crossed over to a subwoofer at 60 Hz or higher. See http://www.ascendacoustics.com/pages.../srm1meas.html

p.s.
As a result, if you really want to get the best out of your speaker system in Direct modes, you need to integrate your sub with your fronts external to the receiver and not use the AVR's SW output. The bass management would have to be done either in the sub or using an external crossover since the AVR provides no bass management in Direct modes.

FYI, I'm using an SR8001. I think I forgot to mention that. I don't think that model has a loudness curve, or at least I couldn't find it. I triple checked to make sure that I had all EQ off. I do. My room is 11' wide x 20' deep x 8' high for the front half, although the back half opens a bit to around 14-15 feet because it opens up to stairs. There's also a open doorway to the kitchen very close to the left front speaker and sub. It's Carpeted, no treatments, but it has a couch about half way back with assorted lamps, end tables etc. In other words, it's not ideal for listening, but it's the only space I have.

wow, thanks for the extra thought put into your post, even checking the frequency response of my speakers! Anyway, I've been running with speakers set to small, crossed at 80Hz. I have plugs in my speakers right now that cause a roll off around 60Hz. So in pure direct, I turn on the sub's crossover and set it to around 60Hz. The sub is connected to the 8001 by the RCA input for regular stereo/surround modes, and it is also hooked up by speaker wire using the speaker B connection for pure direct (I turn on A+B in pure direct to get the sub).

I was thinking last night that maybe some of the differences I was hearing were symptoms of having slightly different configurations when trying to do A/B tests. Or, that the speakers were able to open up more and perform better when set to small because some of those low frequencies were taken from them. That could give regular "stereo mode" a possible advantage. To make it easier to test, I've turned off the sub, put the front trim levels to 0, and set them to large. So everything should be as close to identical as possible when switching. The overall sound suffers from lack of bass, but at least I can compare apples to apples for everything else.

What I found is still odd. The bass and midrange have a bit of a boost in stereo mode and the soundstage is still wider. I suppose some people may say it's a little "bloated" when directly A/B'd, but I think it's nice. In Pure Direct, the soundstage is somewhat collapsed/claustrophobic in nature, and thin. It does sound finely detailed, in some ways perhaps more so than in stereo mode, but over all not as musical. I'm wondering if the 8001 has something like a "house curve" that's always there. You know sort of like TV's are set to torch mode at the store. This "house curve" could make the receiver sound "better" to most people. I'm just not so sure a company like Marantz would do that though. Even with the speakers at "0" trim level stereo mode seems to have a slight volume boost compared to pure direct, although that could just be a perception because of the enhanced bass and midrange. Seldon, I think you're right. It does sort of sound like the old school "loudness" button that most modern receivers have gotten rid of (including the 8001 unless I'm wrong). Which still leaves me perplexed. Maybe there is still a bit of processing going on even with all EQ's off.

I have tried using the HDMI outs and the analog outs from the Oppo to see if that made a difference. Using analog out, volume level matched, speakers at large, and sub off for all testing, the two modes are a little closer to each other. There are some trade offs here though. The higher end of the treble seems more decisive and sharp, contributing to a bit more perceived high end detail in pure direct.

This all started because I have a nice new turntable on the way and I wanted the purist analog sound I could get. I don't want the whole ADC/DAC conversion going on with my analog sources. So I'm getting my system ready for that.
Hmmm . . .

El Espectro,

Sorry, I didn't realize that the 5001 doesn't have Audyssey. (I just now downloaded its manual. It has no mention of a microphone, so the AVR doesn't include any proprietary room equalization functions, either.)

If I'm understanding what you wrote, in "stereo" mode, you're using the 80Hz crossover functionality of the receiver, and it sounds better than when you use "direct".

In "direct" mode, you're using A+B speaker outputs, driving the subwoofer from the B speaker outputs, and the "bass management" is what's provided in the subwoofer and is being applied only to the subwoofer.

Is that summary accurate?

If so, then it seems to me that the high-frequency rolloff of the sub isn't being matched to the low frequency rolloff of the main speakers. There's no reason to expect that the slope of the high frequency cut-off of the subwoofer's low pass filter would be similar to the slope of the low frequency falloff of the main speakers. I would expect this mismatch to lead to peaks and and/or valleys in the volume of the sounds that you hear in the frequency range where the sub and mains overlap.

Your description of what you hear isn't entirely consistent with that, however. I wouldn't expect it to affect the treble response.

Basically. Actually though, I have the SR8001, with Audyssey. But I have never found a loudness curve for stereo.

The crossover on my sub: Hsu STF-2 is low-pass analog filter that will roll off higher
frequencies going to the subwoofer at a rate of 24dB/oct. The plugs in my speakers create a smooth 12dB/Octave roll-off at 60Hz according to the Ascend, so yeah, I need to tweak a little there, but setting the sub near 60Hz shouldn't be too bad. But it's really the response in the other frequencies that has me confused, like I said, without the sub, there's still a noticeable difference. Right now I'm going to drop it for the day because A: I've A/B'd enough that I don't even know what I like anymore, and B: checking with a CD isn't representative of what I'll get with the turntable anyway.

To add to the fun, I have my first multichannel DVD-a coming in the mail, so now I have to mess with the surround EQ's more. Which, if you've seen my earlier posts, I seem to not be getting right either. The sub just doesn't seem very active when I use the Audyssey EQ with movies. I think maybe what I really need to do (after a break) is to do some more extended listening tests with less quick A/B switching to really familiarize myself with the sound of each mode. I could always make a custom EQ setting . . . later.

thanks for the help!!