Marantz SR7012 receiver has turned itself off twice already(Mac/hdmi/Marantz/Denon troubleshooting-a play in 3 acts)

Amazon
Advertise with us
Find deals on ebay
QuadraphonicQuad

Help Support QuadraphonicQuad:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Kap I also don't know your budget. But I'm thinking you are a value guy like I am. Have you looked at the Tonewinner stuff? They also manufacture a lot of the Emotiva gear to EMOs specs. Its very Chinese, right down to some of the text on the back panel. The AT-300 pre/pro is $1400. You wont find anything with these capabilities for this price anywhere else. Same basic architecture as the Emotiva MC-1. But it gives you an assignable 5.1 Analog input and balanced outputs. The latter is the way to go if you are thinking of active speakers at some point. The bad news is there is no true pure analog mode. Any input you plug into it is digitized to a maximum sample rate of 48kHz. And it looks like they have pretty much sorted out the inevitable firmware updates on it. Firmware updates seem to be just a fact of life with these things. It is not network connected like a lot of the Marantz/Denon/Yammy stuff is, so the connectivity is limited.

The power amps look to be very high value per watt. Those biga$$ meters on the front panels may appeal to you. There are threads at AVS if you're interested.
ToneWinner & Summit Hi-Fi
 
LuvMyQuad said:
Kap I also don't know your budget. But I'm thinking you are a value guy like I am. Have you looked at the Tonewinner stuff? They also manufacture a lot of the Emotiva gear to EMOs specs. Its very Chinese, right down to some of the text on the back panel. The AT-300 pre/pro is $1400. You wont find anything with these capabilities for this price anywhere else. Same basic architecture as the Emotiva MC-1. But it gives you an assignable 5.1 Analog input and balanced outputs. The latter is the way to go if you are thinking of active speakers at some point. The bad news is there is no true pure analog mode. Any input you plug into it is digitized to a maximum sample rate of 48kHz. And it looks like they have pretty much sorted out the inevitable firmware updates on it. Firmware updates seem to be just a fact of life with these things. It is not network connected like a lot of the Marantz/Denon/Yammy stuff is, so the connectivity is limited.

The power amps look to be very high value per watt. Those biga$$ meters on the front panels may appeal to you. There are threads at AVS if you're interested.
ToneWinner & Summit Hi-Fi
Click to expand...

Wow, some really nice gear and looks to be GREAT VALUE FOR THE MONEY!
 
LuvMyQuad said:
I auditioned an Audio Research D150 tube amp for a week back in my stereo dayz. A monster of an amp. My perception was the bass was overemphasized, And it had more hiss than the GAS Ampzilla I eventually bought.
Click to expand...

Not one of their best, IMHO. I used to own two D70 MkII. Unfortunately, I sold one. Those are very good sounding with just one pair of push/pull 6550s per channel (about 59wpc with Svetlana tubes). The D125 was very good too. The one I'm looking for now is the VT200 MkII. That one is a beast, just a big half open cage with fans and 16 6550 tubes. However, I must say the KT150 is changing the market, a well done amp with a pair of KT150s per channel is good for 120 to 150 wpc... but they are still too new to be in the used market...

The GAS Ampzilla was (still is) a true classic.
 
ar surround said:
I don't know the sensitivity of your Polks @kap'n krunch. But yes to LMQ's statement. In general, one should make sure that amps have enough dB headroom and the capability to handle low impedance loads if necessary. I've generally found that with speakers of the 86 to 87dB sensitivity variety, the bigger amps sound more 'open' because they just loaf along.

I've thought about getting 11 monoblock tube amps for my Atmos rig. Do tubes really sound better than solid state? I don't know. But my basement gets so cold in the winter that I can use the heat coming off of the tube amps to keep from shivering. Maybe I can distribute them around the MLP. :sneaky:
Click to expand...

Try class A FET solid state amps... all the heat without the audiophilia nervosa of multiple tubes. ;-)

It's not so much that tubes sound better than SS.... as a rule of thumb, all other things being equal, yes... but then you got topologies... SS Class A, SS Class AB, SS hybrids like sliding bias (Stasis, Class H), Tube SET, Tube Class AB, Tube OTL, FET, bipolar, etc, etc....

Then you got the ICE, NCore, Purify Class D amps....

Currently, the NCore are the best I've heard in terms of "purity"... I've been told the Purify are even better.

But, I prefer the sound, distorted as it may be in its own way, of a tube or Class A FET amp with a HUGE power supply behind it.

Now, my bias towards HT is that movies are not worth the subtlety of music.... so in my own HT I have coalesced into a single Nuforce MCA-20, which is powerful, cool, easy to run and I got it on a blow out sale ($800). I don't do Atmos, just one more complication that will be superceded in four years.
 
Last edited:
LuvMyQuad said:
Please don't tell me there are tubed Atmos capable prepros.... :eek:
Click to expand...

Think about it.... a row of eight (twelve?) 12AX7s in a row... the low level tubes are pretty reliable, they don't whistle or blow up like a power tube...

Front panel "remote" control.
 
4-earredwonder said:
AFAIK, NO! I was going to mention THAT issue but why further confuse AR with such "trivialities...."LOL!

From my experience, tubed anything is a real PITA and is probably best suited for a Stereo rig ... in a frigid environment! ⛄
Click to expand...

I live in SoCal.

Before we got the AC, I'd listen to the stereo with two tubed amps and one tube preamp while wearing shorts and a t-shirt and drinking a cold soda.

You gotta do sacrifices for your sound man! We're audiophiles, huh?

It's not a PITA... it's a labor of love.... can you imagine running two identical stereo tube amps to two pairs of identical mini monitors both biwired? You don't know what a PITA is... However, when all aligned well, it sounded glorious.

But, then.... I used to own an Alfa Romeo, so everything else is a piece of cake.
 
Last edited:
LuvMyQuad said:
Kap, another high value power amp idea to consider are the Outlaw units. The 5 channel version and the 7 channel version are well liked by most users.

Model 5000x 5-Channel Amplifier

Outlaw Model 5000 5-Channel Amplifier Perfect Condition/Emotiva equal 62lbs NICE | eBay

Model 7220 7-Channel Fully Balanced Amplifier

Model 7000x 7-Channel Amplifier

Outlaw Audio Model 7700 - 7 Channel Power Amplifier | 7x130 Watts Continuous | eBay
Click to expand...

Outlaw... I forgot about them!

This is the corresponding Hifishark.com search ( a wider net than just eBay )...

https://www.hifishark.com/search?q=outlaw
Aaah... the current used market greed. I wouldn't pay more than $550 for that used 7 channel on eBay: putting it up at a starting price of $700 on an auction, for something that runs $1K, is a sure recipe of greed that will not generate much interest. If the OP wants it, I'd recommend a private message to the seller for $500 and see where it goes.

It's a good enough amp for what it is. A good upgrade over the vast majority of AVRs for sure.

Outlaw used to make an outstanding pre-pro but they couldn't bring the follow on to market due to the cost of licensing fees. :p They used to share it with Sherwood, remember that?

Sad, because I was planning on buying that one. I waited for a couple of years and then I jumped on the Emotiva when they brought it on sale.

Now, the balanced amp is $4K, so that gets pretty high for a "value" brand. At that point you start to see some very serious competition, specially if you start looking at NCore based amps and the used Parasounds... see if you can find (a hard to find) Classic amp...

Back to the Outlaw amps... specifically the 7000. And looking at the specs of the 7000x:

This 7 channel amp is likely pretty good for a movie only system. It doesn't need the subtlety of music, and at 125wpc is likely fine to drive just about any dynamic speaker on the market... I doubt anyone would match a High End speaker with a cruel impedance, or a current hungry load, with that amp...

BTW, the ratings are honest.. for the 7000x, Outlaw claims

7 x 130 watts (all channels driven) into 8 ohms and 7 x 200 watts into 4 ohms.

And

200 watts RMS x 7 into 4 ohms (from 20 Hz to 20 kHz with less than 0.06% total harmonic distortion)

It shows that it's power supply is not as stout as we would want. Ideally we'd like to see twice the power into 4 ohms, but at least it shows it has a good power supply.

Oh, IT WEIGHTS 61 POUNDS! That's a lot of metal for the price. It's gonna be expensive to ship.

Pretty outstanding for the price, reliability seems to be fine ( I did a web search for it )...

Here's another option, this one is much more expensive, the Parasound A51 which would be preferable to the Outlaw 7220 ( taking into account it's only five channels and you will need an A21 if you need seven...) but at used prices, it gets reasonable...

https://www.hifishark.com/search?q=parasound+a51
But now I just raised the bar and likely too high a price.

I think the Outlaw 7000 is an outstanding suggestion! Just don't overpay for it.
 
Last edited:
More power (so to speak) to those who advocate separates over receivers, and I guess if you can afford it, that's the way to go. On the other hand, I've had three Denon receivers over the last ten years, and I've never had any problems with them. I sold one of them and use the other two daily. Just my experience.
 
paligap said:
More power (so to speak) to those who advocate separates over receivers, and I guess if you can afford it, that's the way to go. On the other hand, I've had three Denon receivers over the last ten years, and I've never had any problems with them. I sold one of them and use the other two daily. Just my experience.
Click to expand...

There is a big difference in the used market for multi channel amplifiers and AVRS.

The amps will keep their value and they don't become obsolete... so IMHO, buying a new amp is only for those with money and no time to look, wheel and deal. There are very fine used multi channel amps in the market and you can get a great deal that will last for decades.. and then just change the caps, relays, low level components and you will be good for decades.

The AVRs are obsolete a year after your purchase new. The pace of change in the HT standards is nuts.

Your 10 year old Denon likely did not have HDCP 2.2, Atmos, Super Duper Dolby, Room Correction, Network interface, etc, etc... It likely had a nice 5.1 or 7.1 channel decoder but God Forbid you bought a new TV...

Example... I recently bought a Roku and hooked it up to my 10 month old LG OLED TV. The damn thing went off to handshake and not only was the cable insufficient to maintain the video signal (I had to dig out a new 8K HDMI cable) but it was trying to install all kinds of crazy IO standards that were not really working... so I had to override it and "degrade" it to a plain 4K interface.... Seriously? These are brand NEW components and they can't even communicate with each other?

So those amps are not really that expensive at all. Just look for used ones on hifishark.com.

Those AVRs are actually very expensive as they are pretty much throw away money.
 
tonyE said:
There is a big difference in the used market for multi channel amplifiers and AVRS.

The amps will keep their value and they don't become obsolete... so IMHO, buying a new amp is only for those with money and no time to look, wheel and deal. There are very fine used multi channel amps in the market and you can get a great deal that will last for decades.. and then just change the caps, relays, low level components and you will be good for decades.

The AVRs are obsolete a year after your purchase new. The pace of change in the HT standards is nuts.

Your 10 year old Denon likely did not have HDCP 2.2, Atmos, Super Duper Dolby, Room Correction, Network interface, etc, etc... It likely had a nice 5.1 or 7.1 channel decoder but God Forbid you bought a new TV...

Example... I recently bought a Roku and hooked it up to my 10 month old LG OLED TV. The damn thing went off to handshake and not only was the cable insufficient to maintain the video signal (I had to dig out a new 8K HDMI cable) but it was trying to install all kinds of crazy IO standards that were not really working... so I had to override it and "degrade" it to a plain 4K interface.... Seriously? These are brand NEW components and they can't even communicate with each other?

So those amps are not really that expensive at all. Just look for used ones on hifishark.com.

Those AVRs are actually very expensive as they are pretty much throw away money.
Click to expand...
Pardon my ignorance, but even if you buy amps instead of receivers, wouldn't you still have to buy processors? Why wouldn't they also become obsolete within a year?
 
paligap said:
Pardon my ignorance, but even if you buy amps instead of receivers, wouldn't you still have to buy processors? Why wouldn't they also become obsolete within a year?
Click to expand...

Analog audio amplifiers don't go obsolete in a year. Heck, there are analog audio amps that with proper care, ie: tubed units from the 50s and 60s, are still going strong and sounding good.

The idea behind splitting the components is to separate the obsolence. The processors do go out of style, sure, but you don't have to buy a new amp. Furthermore, if you do it right, you don't really have to buy a whole new processor, just buy the decoding hardware and perhaps the video switching.

It's a hard thing to do as the consumer electronics industry wants to sell you integrated mass market units with all kinds of fancy logos on the front panel for which the manufacturer had to pay a license fee. So, the more often the standards change the more often consumers will get a new one. And they get costly soon...

I've been trying to do this with PC based source systems... and recently stuff like WebOS and Roku seems to be creating new standards. In many ways, the new Smart TVs are obsoleting the entire pre-pro concept. They include all the video and digital audio switching. All you need is an audio decoder and the amplifiers.

Look, I just got rid of a Direct TV PVR, and rewired the system so the TV is the main selector now, not the Emotiva. I replaced the Direct TV box with an OTA Antenna, a Tablo (quad tuner, PVR), a WD 4TB USB drive and a Roku. Video switching done with the TV (uses the Plex servers too). And the Emotiva just has two inputs: One input is the HDMI from the TV than handles the audio stream the TV switched into... there is also a 2nd input that accepts the analog output and HDMI of the PC/Xonar, so I can play music and video as well.

And I'm running the latest network standards in my LAN... recently upgraded that rack to a managed switch, using static IP addresses. Good luck dealing with all of that in one AVR... it's simply too complicated, too many things to go wrong, too likely that the video switching board failure will take the entire HT down....

It sounds complicated, but once set up, it's actually very easy to use and my shelves are getting empty (mostly a few small boxes).
 
Last edited:
the only amps that I would get with tubes would be guitar amps, no way am I going to have tubes in my pro audio chain…I know that a lot of folks swear by them and I respect that, same way that I expect respect for my very twisted love of vinyl!
 
kap'n krunch said:
the only amps that I would get with tubes would be guitar amps, no way am I going to have tubes in my pro audio chain…I know that a lot of folks swear by them and I respect that, same way that I expect respect for my very twisted love of vinyl!
Click to expand...

I've had some long conversations with my son about this. He's into guitar and he loves his tube amps and heads. But, those are designed to introduce distortions.

High End audio tube preamps are much different. And modern stuff with KT120s and KT150s are almost indistinguishable from good solid state stuff running Class A... which means solid performance and very good sound.

Mind you, I don't think I'd want tubes in a "pro audio chain"... but there I would make a point of running Class A with FETs.

Oh yes, I am into vinyl too, but that's another story. There I run a tube preamp as well.
 
kap'n krunch said:
the only amps that I would get with tubes would be guitar amps, no way am I going to have tubes in my pro audio chain…I know that a lot of folks swear by them and I respect that, same way that I expect respect for my very twisted love of vinyl!
Click to expand...

Did I not read somewhere that the best tubes come from Russia? That would make things even more complicated given the current situation. As for vinyl, all I can say is choose your poison whether it be vinyl, tube amps, Atmos speakers all over the ceiling, etc.
 
Last edited:
LuvMyQuad said:
Kap I also don't know your budget. But I'm thinking you are a value guy like I am. Have you looked at the Tonewinner stuff? They also manufacture a lot of the Emotiva gear to EMOs specs. Its very Chinese, right down to some of the text on the back panel. The AT-300 pre/pro is $1400. You wont find anything with these capabilities for this price anywhere else. Same basic architecture as the Emotiva MC-1. But it gives you an assignable 5.1 Analog input and balanced outputs. The latter is the way to go if you are thinking of active speakers at some point. The bad news is there is no true pure analog mode. Any input you plug into it is digitized to a maximum sample rate of 48kHz. And it looks like they have pretty much sorted out the inevitable firmware updates on it. Firmware updates seem to be just a fact of life with these things. It is not network connected like a lot of the Marantz/Denon/Yammy stuff is, so the connectivity is limited.

The power amps look to be very high value per watt. Those biga$$ meters on the front panels may appeal to you. There are threads at AVS if you're interested.
ToneWinner & Summit Hi-Fi
Click to expand...
Thank you for this great heads up...so . let me get this straight, these people reverse engineered the Emotiva stuff and they build it in China , along with the Chinese text in the back of the components?
They are definitely a bit cheaper than the Emotiva people AND they also added analog inputs PLUS 1/4" analog inputs and outputs in the back which the current Emotiva HIGH END stuff doesn't have...
Am seriously considering the preamp and the 5 channel amp...
The only thing that worries me is the support and warranty...
 
ar surround said:
Did I not read somewhere that the best tubes come from Russia? That would make things even more complicated given the current situation. As for vinyl, all I can say is choose your poison whether it be vinyl, tube amps, Atmos speakers all over the ceiling, etc.
Click to expand...

Power tubes, from Russia and somewhere in Yugoslavia. yep... it may be awhile before I can find 6550s for a reasonable price. But the low level tubes, 12AX7s, seem to come from all over.
 
kap'n krunch said:
Thank you for this great heads up...so . let me get this straight, these people reverse engineered the Emotiva stuff and they build it in China , along with the Chinese text in the back of the components?
They are definitely a bit cheaper than the Emotiva people AND they also added analog inputs PLUS 1/4" analog inputs and outputs in the back which the current Emotiva HIGH END stuff doesn't have...
Am seriously considering the preamp and the 5 channel amp...
The only thing that worries me is the support and warranty...
Click to expand...

As a practicing engineer, there is NO WAY I'm going to subsidize IP THEFT.

As a matter of fact, the US DoS should block their products. I'm surprised Emotiva hasn't sued them....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

S
Misconceptions about "Sunflower" so-called quad
3 4 5
Replies
95
Views
38K
Pj1
P

Latest posts

Back
Top