Deciding between Yamaha or Marantz

Easy answer ..simply email this question to several of the highly regarded well know AV magazine reviewers out there, who regularly review AV gear, and let them tell you what they would chose! Then go with that
. Why dink around if you can't A/B them in your own home otherwise? Makes more sense

AV magazine reviewers are mostly paid reviews, I no longer value them anymore.

This is an old thread but it showed up in a Google search and others may ask the so same questions im speaking only of two ch play back not sur round sound, the onkyo sound gReay in sur round and the remote and interface are fantastic ... I don't understand why u all hype up onkyo, I've owned the 801, the 805 then the high end pre pro 9nkyo pr-sc5509... I've owned an audio research sp16 tube pre a bat 51 tube pre amp, mcintosh, muse, adcom... I find the onkyo only sounds listenable when in pure audio mode which bypasses all crossover settings and the audyssy. I find the unit unlistenable in any other setting from an audiophile perspective, I should note I'm running a Rega Apollo cd player with aucistic zdn analog rca not digital audio stream...

That being said any audiophile pre amp still crushes the onkyo in 2ch music, I started running my cd player into the multi ch inputs and assigned those to the cd player input, that was a marked improvemenent..

So the fact that even a budget $450 adcom pre amp crushes the onkyo in 2ch, instead of adding more cables and components I've decided to buy a yamaha cx-a5000. My buddy owns a $1500 yamaha receiver that crushes my onkyo with my proceed amp 5 with synergistic research XLR cables,

I will update this when I get yamaha,