Does anyone build quality atmos receivers?

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ArmyOfQuad

2K Club - QQ Super Nova
Since 2002/2003
Joined
Apr 22, 2002
Messages
2,320
Location
Attleboro, MA
Went to turn on my Marantz receiver this morning to watch a little TV while eating breakfast, and the damn thing won't stay on, keeps shutting off into protect mode. Merry fucking Christmas to me!

The worst part of this is, I still have the Zappa set sitting on my table, that I haven't gotten around to being busy with the whole Christmas season thing - now I don't get to listen to that until I get this all sorted out, whicih means dumping more money into a less than 2 year old piece of shit equipment.

I am surrounded by 50+ year old hardware that is still going strong, so I find it absolutly disgusting the current state of audio hardware manufacturers! How do they get away with this crap? Marantz certainly isn't the company they once were, just another one of those garbage companies cheaply fitting together barely working components to edge it past the warranty finish line, and have you coming back to hand over more of your hard earned money.

Are there any honorable manufacturers left? What would you all recommend for an atmos receiver I won't have to be replacing again shortly after purchase?
 
if it's a modern Marantz, I recommend checking ALL of the cables, cause that happened to me this year and I broke down and got a Tonewinner combo similar to THIS ONE , which, I will say , kicks ass; but I plugged all my stuff to it and it shut itself down AGAIN, so I went cable by cable and found out that the culprit was an RCA cable that had gone south!!!!
 
I have a Marantz AV 7005 pre pro that was shutting itself off and I removed and replugged the ribbon cable between its main analog power supply and the standby switch mode power supply (that keeps the Infra red receptor active when the unit is plugged in but "Off") and after doing that it would not mis behave anymore. Those ribbon cables operate at low current , relatively high impedance and are susceptible to oxidized connections which can be improved by removing and replacing. Be careful though it can also happen that when you pull gently on a ribbon cable it will pull the socket it is plugged into off the circuit board. This follows from bad solder process (from mass production AND lead free solder)

This is by no means exclusive to audio equipment. I am about to retire from a job repairing scientific equipment at a university. Over the last 15 years the job has drifted from repairing old things that had something wear out to a too great proportion of repairing NEW things that have right out of the factory, computer control boards that are defective for no apparent reason. Since such boards have a tendency to be pricey and stuff is too microscopic to do board level diagnosis and repair (which I used to be able to do , but now you need a "rework station" with a microscope and stainless steel solder masks) it is not as much fun.
 
The complexity is made worse by the coexsistence inside one case of alot of analog channels (13 with or without power amps) and digital circuitry that is at least as complex as a PC. They really do replace racks of gear.

I think things would be better (reliability wise) if we didn't have the European ROHS. Lead was put into solder for a reason not just to pollute. A better solution would have been to separate the waste stream. ROHS solder is terrible. I am glad I have several lifetimes supply of the real stuff on hand.
 
Went to turn on my Marantz receiver this morning to watch a little TV while eating breakfast, and the damn thing won't stay on, keeps shutting off into protect mode. Merry fucking Christmas to me!

The worst part of this is, I still have the Zappa set sitting on my table, that I haven't gotten around to being busy with the whole Christmas season thing - now I don't get to listen to that until I get this all sorted out, whicih means dumping more money into a less than 2 year old piece of shit equipment.

I am surrounded by 50+ year old hardware that is still going strong, so I find it absolutly disgusting the current state of audio hardware manufacturers! How do they get away with this crap? Marantz certainly isn't the company they once were, just another one of those garbage companies cheaply fitting together barely working components to edge it past the warranty finish line, and have you coming back to hand over more of your hard earned money.

Are there any honorable manufacturers left? What would you all recommend for an atmos receiver I won't have to be replacing again shortly after purchase?
I can really understand how you feel about the general poor quality of today's audio products. It's a sad situation what's out there.
Yamaha still makes excellent high quantity av receivers.
I have a Yamaha Aventage RX-A2010. I purchased it directly from Yamaha, refurbished in 2015.

Here's a link to a newer one at Amazon. There are different models in the series.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08DXT8198?ref=emc_p_m_5_i
 
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Are there any honorable manufacturers left? What would you all recommend for an atmos receiver I won't have to be replacing again shortly after purchase?

I feel for ya, what a pain & frustration. Let us know how you work things out.

Any receiver you buy has the potential to be replaced sooner than later just because of audio format changes. Right now I'd be willing to bet they are working on Dolby ATMOS Plus or whatever.

The one and only receiver I ever owned was a Kenwood 9940. It did solve some problems I had using a real mish mash of separate components. But eventually I went back to figuring out how to do it right using separates. I would suggest looking at a pre-pro from Anthem or Emotiva, two brands I would consider before anything Marantz or Denon or Sony. Maybe buy two of Involve's Amp Master fro 12 chs of ATMOS goodiness.
 
Complexity is also an issue. All that computing power in a modern AVR along with multichannel amplification, power supply, protective circuits, etc, just boggles the mind.
AR, a receiver is indeed a swiss army knife incorporating everything including the kitchen sink...mixing analogue and digital circuits to boot! I've always loved separates but that opens up another can of worms incorporating outboard amps, interconnects, etc. and I've had failures even with pricey amps.

My bedroom receiver, an older Onkyo, is starting to show its age and I will probably have to replace it with another receiver but just hooking it up from scratch makes my blood boil. All those 'freakin' wires .... YUK! Not to mention the fussy set up.....you almost have to have an MIT degree!

I once had a 'know it all' friend set up one of my systems and I swear he was dyslectic ... when I turned it on I knew immediately it was OUT OF PHASE.....he mixed up left and right speaker terminals. YUK, again!
 
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Complexity is also an issue. All that computing power in a modern AVR along with multichannel amplification, power supply, protective circuits, etc, just boggles the mind.
AR, You are so right about that. The Yamaha AV receiver I have just boggles my pea brain with all the adjustments, menus, sub-menus.... Many times I must look @ the manual again & again to even use or understand these functions...
When I got this, I also purchased , for an extra fee, an actual paper bound version of the manual. I hate these disc or pdf only copies of manuals. I want something I can hold and access w/o needing a tablet or laptop. (..what's worse is when these companies expect me to print it out myself if I want a hard copy)
This is similar to liking a physical copy of a media over a virtual.
 
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Went to turn on my Marantz receiver this morning to watch a little TV while eating breakfast, and the damn thing won't stay on, keeps shutting off into protect mode. Merry fucking Christmas to me!

The worst part of this is, I still have the Zappa set sitting on my table, that I haven't gotten around to being busy with the whole Christmas season thing - now I don't get to listen to that until I get this all sorted out, whicih means dumping more money into a less than 2 year old piece of shit equipment.

I am surrounded by 50+ year old hardware that is still going strong, so I find it absolutly disgusting the current state of audio hardware manufacturers! How do they get away with this crap? Marantz certainly isn't the company they once were, just another one of those garbage companies cheaply fitting together barely working components to edge it past the warranty finish line, and have you coming back to hand over more of your hard earned money.

Are there any honorable manufacturers left? What would you all recommend for an atmos receiver I won't have to be replacing again shortly after purchase?
 
Having retired from repairing video & audio equipment for over 50 years, most issues like yours is caused by a shorted pair of audio output transistors but in rare cases it can be caused by a sorted pair of speakers wires or even speakers.

The first thing to do is disconnect all speakers wires to the receiver & see if it still goes into shutdown. If it doesn't, hook up headphones if it has a jack for then & see if you get normal volume -- if you do, hook up one set of speaker wires at a time to see which one triggers the shutdown & that would be your issue.

If it still goes into shutdown, it requires more technical troubleshooting which could be cheap or costly depending on the construction of the receiver & how easy it is to get to components.

Rog
 
As I and my equipment age, I find that maintenance on all of us is taking a bigger end bigger chunk of my time and budget. I have a tire on my car that won’t hold air for more than two days, a furnace that needs replacing, and the list of A/V gear that doen’t work has already been posted here. Two doors to the outside of my house are falling apart, too, so it’s not just electronics that’s falling apart.

My health issues aren’t scary at this point, but I still have to spend about a half-hour every day stretching out my arthritic neck. Shit happens, and Merry Christmas.
 
As I and my equipment age, I find that maintenance on all of us is taking a bigger end bigger chunk of my time and budget. I have a tire on my car that won’t hold air for more than two days, a furnace that needs replacing, and the list of A/V gear that doen’t work has already been posted here. Two doors to the outside of my house are falling apart, too, so it’s not just electronics that’s falling apart.

My health issues aren’t scary at this point, but I still have to spend about a half-hour every day stretching out my arthritic neck. Shit happens, and Merry Christmas.

Tell me about it. I suspect that we will all get to a point where we simply can no longer be bothered with this complex audio shit. I have an advantage, because as an engineer, I have to fuck around with everything. That includes stuff that isn't broken because maybe I can "make it better."

Ooo, wife just called to open Christmas presents. Dutton Vocalion quads for me! Merry Christmas!
 
Tell me about it. I suspect that we will all get to a point where we simply can no longer be bothered with this complex audio shit. I have an advantage, because as an engineer, I have to fuck around with everything. That includes stuff that isn't broken because maybe I can "make it better."

Ooo, wife just called to open Christmas presents. Dutton Vocalion quads for me! Merry Christmas!
As a retired engineer myself, I get a lot of satisfaction out of making things work. But sometimes, it’s overwhelming. Fixed a shower door that wouldn’t stay closed this week already.

I expect a full report on the new music!
 
My Marantz becomes a room space heater when operating even at modest volume levels. Excessive heat will dramatically shorten the life of any electronic component, especially a device as complicated as an AVR.
That said I find that an EXTERNAL cooling unit is almost a requirement for today's multichannel receivers. I burned through several before I wised up.
My Marantz has been running problem free since 2018 with this cooling it.

Aircom T10
 
Went to turn on my Marantz receiver this morning to watch a little TV while eating breakfast, and the damn thing won't stay on, keeps shutting off into protect mode. Merry fucking Christmas to me!

The worst part of this is, I still have the Zappa set sitting on my table, that I haven't gotten around to being busy with the whole Christmas season thing - now I don't get to listen to that until I get this all sorted out, whicih means dumping more money into a less than 2 year old piece of shit equipment.

I am surrounded by 50+ year old hardware that is still going strong, so I find it absolutly disgusting the current state of audio hardware manufacturers! How do they get away with this crap? Marantz certainly isn't the company they once were, just another one of those garbage companies cheaply fitting together barely working components to edge it past the warranty finish line, and have you coming back to hand over more of your hard earned money.

Are there any honorable manufacturers left? What would you all recommend for an atmos receiver I won't have to be replacing again shortly after purchase?
Obvious question, but is the receiver in a closed cabinet? If so, it is probably a temperature shut down. I have exhaust fans in the back of all my cabinets that have equipment in them. It makes a big difference. I have two friends that were having shutdowns and this solved their problem.
 
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