This is a review and detailed measurements of the Marantz SR8015 11.2 channel 8K AV Receiver (AVR). It was kindly purchased by a member and drop shipped to me. It costs US $3,299 and is the flagship unit from Marantz.
All Marantz AVRs look the same and the 8015 is no exception:
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I am not a fan of the port hole display from looks or functionality. It does less and looks worse in my opinion than a wide rectangular display on its sister Denon products. Typical of these products, despite the high cost, the volume control is stiff and has horrible feel. Fortunately you will be using the remote in this application but still, can't this be made a bit better feeling? Surely in a showroom people play with this control.
As is common with Denon and Marantz products, the SR8015 runs hot, really hot. The left row of amps really cooks with the case almost too hot to touch. There are two fans on each side under the row of heatsinks which is nice but they don't come on to keep the unit more comfortable in typical use.
The back panel tries to give the look of high-fidelity with gold color:
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Can't believe in this day and age they still insist on including component and composite video inputs. I know in retail more connectors seems to be associated with higher value but really, let's leave them behind and make it easier to find what is what in the back.
I have a recent policy of running my measurements by D&M for review but this unit has been tested by Audioholics and since my results are inline with that (but with very different conclusion), I did not do so.
Marantz SR8015 DAC Measurements
As usual we start our AVR testing by creating as straight of a pass through we can from digital input to analog output. Let's start with HDMI and pre-out then:
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Ah, it is a relief to test the first Marantz AVR that doesn't destroy performance in the name of subjective listening tests they perform. While SINAD could be better still, it is by far the best I have measured in any Marantz AVR/processor:
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While I tested the unit in pre-amp and pure mode, neither was necessary. It seems that Marantz has solved the problem of amplifier clipping and dragging the DAC performance down at the source (likely an independent power supply). My interface to HDMI in my analyzer software can cause problems of its own so I like to switch to using another digital input that doesn't have this problem, namely, Coax. So let's measure that:
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Strange to lose 3 dB performance here but since most people use HDMI anyway, I guess this is OK.
Edit: forgot to post the distortion+noise versus output level:
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Dynamic range is in line with what we measure in AV products:
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Spectrum in our jitter test is not clean but fortunately it is not an audible problem:
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IMD distortion test is good, again for an AV product:
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Linearity test shows lack of accuracy starting at 19 bits which is below what I like to see but is in keeping with the rest of the measurements:
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Multitone test shows what we have seen with the rest of our tests except rising noise floor in lower frequencies:
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Sadly now we get to a poor decision on Marantz's part yet again with a super slow DAC reconstruction filter:
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This will generate ultrasonic noise (mirror image of your music) which we can see impacting the THD+N versus frequency which has high bandwidth to include them:
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This is due to mistaken belief that time domain ringing at higher frequencies matter but there is no listening tests to prove such. Even if Marantz believes in this approach, they should provide a menu option to select one of the standard DAC filters for those of us who like to have the correct approach here.
Marantz SR8015 Amplifier Measurements
Let's start with testing the amplifier using analog input (pure mode) and testing the Front Left and Right channels:
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We see the result of the competent amplifier design from D&M with above average performance:
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Sadly when I switched to Coax input performance dropped a few notches:
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I can't explain this as with SINAD of 98, this conversion should have been transparent. The problem seems to be in more power supply noise appearing with digital input. Anyway, for proper comparison to stand-alone amplifiers, I will continue my testing with analog input.
Dynamic range is good for an AV product:
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Frequency response is flat in audible band and quite extended:
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Crosstalk is decent:
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There is plenty of power to be had in 2-channel mode:
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Sweeping at different frequencies shows the predictable performance we expect from class AB amplifiers:
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I wrote on the slide that distortion dominated but thinking now, this may be power supply ripple which rises with power causing the lines to be horizontal rather than dropping down (which they would if the noise was residual).
All the tests so far have been in 2-channel mode. Let's now measure power from 1 to 5 channels to see how it scales:
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What was D&M's promise on 5 channel performance? 70%? If so, we are missing that at 61%. Maybe they measure it differently.
EDIT: the comparison is against 2 channel mode which it achieves.
Conclusions
I was pleased to see Marantz remove many of the compromises they had included in their products in the past in the name of "better sound." The only one left seems to be the slow filter which is the easiest to fix: give us a selectable DAC filter like many budget DACs do. Otherwise, this Marantz AVR performs similarly to its Denon counterparts from audio performance point of view with is a major step forward.
I can recommend the Marantz SR8015 AVR.
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