Again, I appreciate all the input and opinions that were/are offered. The ear is a very intangible asset, and each has their own taste and level of sonic interpretation. I only wish (again) that I had a place to audition the gear without a $500 plane ticket. Even then, the likelihood that any store will have my exact setup for an a/b comparison is highly unlikely so one is still open to the possibility of making a choice which is regrettable. As I said, tho, I am convinced that either would be a huge step forward in my music adventure. And now, I can start the search for the better pre amp or speaker, or power conditioner, or room treatment/placement, yada, yada.
Where do I go from here?
- Marantz AV-7005, pre/pro (with balanced outputs and 1.4a HDMI);
Rotel RMB-1565, surrounds and center;
Rotel RKB-650, mains w/ bi-amping;
Martin Logan Motion 20, mains;
Martin Logan Motion 8 Center;
Klipsch SW-10, sub;
KEF iQ-5, surrounds;
Klipsch RS-41 II, surround backs
- ...
- 51 posts total
"Music with the AV7005 required a bit of reading. Being a musician, I
am picky when it comes to music. I know what instruments sound like
live and the nuances in sound from within a live ensemble. With the
Audyssey EQ engaged, I didn't get that full, wide, engaging sound stage
like you do with a live performance. While the music was detailed, the
sound was a bit cold and thin. I changed every parameter that I could
find and finally, turned the EQ off. After a few manual EQ tweaks, I
heard a renewed sound quality and presentation that totally blew away
any AV receiver that I have ever owned." Home Theater Review.com Apparently, the key is not letting Audyssey take the controls. I'm so looking forward to this. |
I, personally, have never had luck with any sort of automated room correction. I had Dirac room correction in a Theta processor once. I really tried to work with it, trying all sorts of different calibrations and configurations. I could never get it to sound good. It always made the audio sound weird in some way or another. Most of the time it had a weird phasing effect. I have found that a very light EQ is great and then do acoustic room treatments for the stuff you can affect. In my own system, the only EQ I do is a -9db cut on the sub frequencies under 30hz. That keeps stuff from rattling too much in my room and you actually don’t hear stuff that low anyways. how is your new A21 sounding? |
Hey aux, what can I say. The Halo is sounding awesome. The soundstage has improved in height and depth, and the bass is well controled and tight. Mids are as you would expect and the highs are good as well. I'm probably not going to use any Audessey settings, in fact, I've been listening in 'Pure Direct' for the most accurate sound. The sub has almost become redundant as well and I also set the sub level at -9db in the speaker level settings on the pre/pro. It's amazing how deep those 5.5's can go on the Motion 20's. Very happy with it all. |
That is awesome! I’m glad the A21 is working out. One thing you may try is to do critical listening with “Pure Direct” turned on and then turned off. I had a scenario with a Yamaha receiver in which the Pure Direct mode sounded worse. It was just too solid-state sounding and bright/harsh. I think turning Pure Direct “off” basically routed the audio signal through another set of op amps, which further smoothed out the sound. I’m not saying this will work the same way in your situation – everything is dependent on components used and system synergy, but it’s something you can try in addition to turning off Audyssey. Here’s another thing I have found. Digital audio that is played using HDMI cable as the source is not as good as using a digital COAX cable. It just does not sound as good. If you have not already done this, I would recommend you at least get a Beldon 1694A digital cable for each source (bluray, satellite, etc.) you have that can do a digital coax output. https://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/digital-audio/index.htm I have found these Beldon cables work excellent and are better than several other cables. At $20 each for a 6 foot cable, it’s an excellent buy. I always recommend minimum 5-6 foot digital cables to prevent short cable signal reflections. You would have to pay $120-200 to get to the next level, such as Audioquest Cinnamon/Carbon or DH Labs D-750 cables. These more expensive cables use silver-plated conductors which are better for digital pulse transmissions. I have found that there are only two scenarios which require that you send digital audio over HDMI cable: 1. Sources that require Dolby Digital Plus (such as streaming services from Netflix / Amazon / Etc.). For some reason, you cannot send Dolby Digital Plus over normal coax. 2. Bluray movies that use the bluray high resolution audio formats, either DTS-MA HD or Dolby TrueHD. The only way you can play DTS-MA/TrueHD is over HDMI. For normal old Dolby Digital and DTS, and even 2-channel PCM (which you would get when doing normal audio streaming from Pandora, CDs, etc.), it just sounds better to send this over digital coax cable instead of using HDMI for the digital audio. You would still need to use the HDMI cable for video. Since you would potentially need both HDMI and coax digital audio from your Samsung Bluray player, you could try doing setting up your inputs on the Marantz like this:
[HDMI] [DIGITAL] [COMP] BD HDMI1 None None DVD HDMI1 Coax1 None
I’m not sure if the Marantz will allow you to use the HDMI1 input for multiple sources, but you can try it out. Then select “BD” source when playing bluray movies that use DTS-MA or TrueHD audio. Select “DVD” when playing anything else (movies with normal DD/DTS, CDs, Pandora, etc.). It's a very cheap way to potentially increase the end result sound quality. |
- 51 posts total