Differences in 5000/6000/7000 Marantz series.

[SuperSound]

I'm looking to buy a new receiver. I'm looking to buy a Marantz since I've always been very happy with them.

My question is what the main differences between the 5000, 6000 and 7000 series are. Is it only the number of build-in amplifiers and the RMS output wattage dat differs? Or is there also a difference in sound quality between these models?

I've found that the SR6012 and SR7012 use MultEQ XT32 instead of MultEQ XT (SR5012). Depending on who you ask, this is a night and day diffrenence in room correction abilities. The SR7012 goes for around €1800 in a local shop, where the SR7011 (previous year) goes for around €1000 and has pretty much the same features after upgrading the firmware (including MultEQ XT32). Are there quality differences here aswell?

I'm currenlty looking for the pricepoint of around €1000 (where the SR7011 and SR6012 would fit, but I'd like to know where the price differences come from and where I would miss out on by going for a lower tier model).

 

[bigboss]

What speakers have you got, and how many?

 

[Benedict_Arnold]

I bought the 7010 a year or two back,at full price, just before the 7011 came out and the price of the 7010 went down 25%. Grrr....

Anyway. I use my 7010 to drive a 7.2.4 setup in a 19 ft x12 ft 6 in dedicated media room. I use a cheap Onkyo power amp for the rear in ceiling speakers. Not fancy speakers by any means, but for HT I can't fault it. Better speakers would produce better music, almost certainly, but then again I still maintain HT receivers for HT, "proper stereo" amps for "proper stereo".

 

[bigboss]

Best is to demo and compare. Differences if any, may be small and only you can decide if the difference is worth the extra outlay.

 

[SuperSound]

I don't have the possibility to test them combined with the speakers I have, sadly

 

[SuperSound]

My 5.0 speaker setup (recently bought) is as follows:

- Q Acoustics 3050 up front
- Q Acoustics 3010 as surrounds
- Q Acoustics 3090c as center

They are now powered by my Marantz SR5500 (12 years old?). Main reason to upgrade is because this model lacks HDMI.

When I was looking for a new receiver with HDMI I found out about Audyssey. I'm curious if it can improve the sound quality of my room. (I think) I can notice some sound reflections (on the high end) from my sloping ceiling (yeah I'm 21, still living at my parents so its for my bedroom ).

My room is very small so it's defintely not about the extra power. While I do plan on taking the speakers and receiver with me when I'm moving out, but that won't be a very large room either.

I think that the 7000 series is a bit too much for me so I'm currently looking at the SR5012 and SR6012 (250-300 euro (the netherlands) difference). Would XT vs XT32 be a noticeable (and worthy) difference? Would the quality (golden in/outputs and speaker terminals, better internals(?)) be a noticable (and worthy) difference?

I've made a comparison (based on the specs on the Marantz website) which you can find here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/3rkkhyfmedwtceg/Marantz%20SR5012%20SR6012.pdf?dl=0 Note that they don't talk about better internals (except for a Clock Jitter Reducer and golden in/outputs)