Marantz Cinema 30

[Descartes]

You've got the value proposition wrong. For most consumers a Dirac auto calibration will be 90% as good as a professional calibration which costs just as much if not more. And that is a true one and done, unlike Dirac which can be used as many times as the consumer wants. And if its not for a dedicated theater room, which again is most consumers, factors such as furniture being moved/added or even more drastic shuffles will require using it more than once during the lifetime of the AVR.

Convince yourself still a big ripoff!

 

[Descartes]

Yeah, maybe 7-8 times in 10 years. I have softwares that also do the job of several humans, I use it everyday and it costs a fraction

REW is free. Audyssey and YPAO are included in the cost of the AVR and also do calibration

So is ARC Genesis!

 

[EWL5]

I have the Cinema 40, if I am using external amplification would I notice any difference changing to the Cinema 30? Would the new/better DACs be noticeable to the average person? I just don’t understand how they effect the sound overall or is it just output using an external amp? Would be quite a bit of money to upgrade. Thanks

Depends on what you are externally amplifying. If the typical L/R channels are covered externally, then I'd say not much improvement going to the Cinema 30 since surrounds get less action in movies and music (except for SACD, DVD-A, Atmos music, etc.). If you have even the center channel externally amped, even less of a reason to upgrade!

 

[sask15]

Thanks for the response. Yes I will have all 5 channels powered externally. So the DAC change difference is measurable with equipment but it would be hard to pick out by ear with all external amplification? I guess there are other internal changes from 40 to 30 but to the untrained ear likely not much difference’s? Thanks

 

[fzst]

Dirac is not running every time I use the AVR. Dirac calculated once the adjustments and transferred to the AVR

Exaclty, and you pay for the one time calculation of these adjustements just like you would for a TV/Porjector calibration. The corerction of the parameters only get applied by the calibrator once but you'll see them everyday when you look at the TV. With Dirac it's the same is kinda like you are paying a calibrator it's jsut that instead of paying a human you use an automatic software. Of course it's only worth it if the software comes close to what a human calibrator could do...

Following your logic: if I make a calculation of (e.g.) a price mark-up in MS Excel for a product I want to sell, every time I invoice a customer using that price calculated in Excel... am I using Excel? Nope

Well yes, I'd say you do since you can only sell the item because you know the price which required you to use excel so everytim you sell an item, excel was kind of used as well. If you were to calculate how much the software excel costs you, you would aslso calculate how much it benefits your sales because you know the exact price you have to sell it at wouldn't you? (assuming that there isn't another way for you to get the calculations done)

 

[peng]

Thanks for the response. Yes I will have all 5 channels powered externally. So the DAC change difference is measurable with equipment but it would be hard to pick out by ear with all external amplification? I guess there are other internal changes from 40 to 30 but to the untrained ear likely not much difference’s? Thanks

Everyone will have different opinions for sure. To me, if I can afford the extra I would definitely go for the 30, but I am sure to my self trained ears I won't be able to hear a difference in my applications, based on specs, measurements, and available technical info.

 

[sask15]

Great, thanks for the help. I imagine the Cinema 40 should be enough for me then. I will get a decent amplifier and maybe update my speakers from MA silvers to MA Gold then instead. Trying to research and see if that change would be worth it too. Thanks

 

[Oddball]

As noted, would be a difficult one to catch in a blind test. Before making the investment in audio, I always try to think "commercially" and think of what upgrade would have biggest bang for the buck - speakers, AVP, amps? But then I usually end up buying what I find enjoyable

Speakers, especially center for HT, make a lot of difference. And then subs, yeah, one can hardly have enough of them for HT.

 

[peng]

Great, thanks for the help. I imagine the Cinema 40 should be enough for me then. I will get a decent amplifier and maybe update my speakers from MA silvers to MA Gold then instead. Trying to research and see if that change would be worth it too. Thanks

Those are basically 4 ohm nominal speakers. If you are getting the bigger towers and want to make sure they are getting enough juice, then it may make sense to use the $1,000 on a 3 channel buckeye amp, or equivalents.

 

[Shimrra Jamaane]

Convince yourself still a big ripoff!

And a ten thousand dollar speaker won't be ten times as good as a thousand dollar speaker. That's not the point.

 

[Descartes]

Exaclty, and you pay for the one time calculation of these adjustements just like you would for a TV/Porjector calibration. The corerction of the parameters only get applied by the calibrator once but you'll see them everyday when you look at the TV. With Dirac it's the same is kinda like you are paying a calibrator it's jsut that instead of paying a human you use an automatic software. Of course it's only worth it if the software comes close to what a human calibrator could do...

Well yes, I'd say you do since you can only sell the item because you know the price which required you to use excel so everytim you sell an item, excel was kind of used as well. If you were to calculate how much the software excel costs you, you would aslso calculate how much it benefits your sales because you know the exact price you have to sell it at wouldn't you? (assuming that there isn't another way for you to get the calculations done)

To get good results with DIRAC you have to spend a lot of time with it, to make your speakers sound good! This program is definitely not very intuitive! Watch the Video from Gene at Audioholic and you will see what he says!

 

[CCCC]

I will wait for some price discount on Dirac. I am happy with Audyssey, especially now that we have Audyssey ONE for free, which is amazing, so paying $799 seems hard to justify, having already a good calibration system (try Audyssey One!)

 

[peng]

I will wait for some price discount on Dirac. I am happy with Audyssey, especially now that we have Audyssey ONE for free, which is amazing, so paying $799 seems hard to justify, having already a good calibration system (try Audyssey One!)

It certainly seems much easier to use then using Ratbuddyssey, but with Ratbuddy I could get to a near flat response between 20-200 Hz so for me I would just stick with Ratbuddyssey, but if A1 did the magic for you that's great. The thing about DL is that to me it does a good job even using it for full range, but on that, ymmv.

 

[CCCC]

When I used Dirac some years ago, it sounded good but it killed the "oooomph" effect (sorry for being so technical) especially in music

 

[peng]

When I used Dirac some years ago, it sounded good but it killed the "oooomph" effect (sorry for being so technical) especially in music

Like all others, they typically use a flat target curve that removed your room gain. If you technical term means bass deficiency, that's the reason. It now gives you a default bass tilt, but even if not, you can do it manually easily.

 

[CapMan]

When I used Dirac some years ago, it sounded good but it killed the "oooomph" effect (sorry for being so technical) especially in music

I love that the Dirac implementation in Denon/Marantz AVR: allows 3 variants per preset which can be switched either in the Dirac PC software whist connected to the AVR or via the iOS remote control.

It’s not quite instantaneous, but good enough. I take the curve Dirac proposes and save three corrections with the same measurement run

- full correction as-is (+3dB bass hump, and -1dB down tilt from 2kHz) which tracks the natural speaker response
- as above but only corrected to 650Hz
- full correction but with +3dB bass hump and 3dB down tilt - more aggressive roll off

I prefer 2.

I think the key is good measurements -
I feel I got better results for music with 4 measurement points around the MLP (1’ apart from it) than with 9 points .

 

[CCCC]

I love that the Dirac implementation in Denon/Marantz AVR: allows 3 variants per preset which can be switched either in the Dirac PC software whist connected to the AVR or via the iOS remote control.

It’s not quite instantaneous, but good enough. I take the curve Dirac proposes and save three corrections with the same measurement run

- full correction as-is (+3dB bass hump, and -1dB down tilt from 2kHz) which tracks the natural speaker response
- as about but only corrected to 650Hz
- full correction but with +3dB bass hump and 3dB down tilt - more aggressive roll off

I prefer 2.

I think the key is good measurements -
I feel I got better results for music with 4 measurement points around the MLP (1’ apart from it) than with 9 points .

I read you can have 3 curves on each preset and you can have 2 different Dirac measures (one in each preset) so you can have a wide sofa measurement and a tighter measurement in the other preset

 

[BearC30]

I have the Cinema 40, if I am using external amplification would I notice any difference changing to the Cinema 30? Would the new/better DACs be noticeable to the average person? I just don’t understand how they effect the sound overall or is it just output using an external amp? Would be quite a bit of money to upgrade. Thanks

I cannot speak to the C40 but I had a C50 with external Rotel amplifier before the C30 and I believe the C50 and C40 use the same DACs?

I have noticed a dramatic improvement in sonic performance moving to the C30 but is it the DAC's or the much improved power thats responsible for that improvement? Like most things in hifi its normally incremental improvements across multiple areas that cobines to improve overall performance.

If you have a good quality DAC the ideal test would be to run it into an analogue in on your C40 and see if you hear an improvement.

I dare say you will experience less of a step change in performance stepping up from the C40 than I did with the C50.

Hope this helps.

 

[CCCC]

I tried the C30 without the external power amp for the L/R speakers. Sounds almost identical, I would not differentiate it in a blind test

 

[peng]

I tried the C30 without the external power amp for the L/R speakers. Sounds almost identical, I would not differentiate it in a blind test

To me that is expected, when people heard major difference between such amps, it is possible there are other reasons, as specs/measurements show such amps should be transparent anyway, when used well within their limits. Not saying people with superb hearing won't hear a difference, but if audible to most, the difference would tend to be very subtle.