Marantz ND8006

Stuart.W.D

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Sabre Dac - Hi-Res-Audio - Music streaming - built in bluetooth, wifi, and airplay capability.

So Marantz have combined the NA8005 & SA8005 to create the the complete digital music source!

Great news for me as this will be a perfect match for my PM8005 amplifier.
I for one can't wait to book my demo in the new year, anyone intrigued by the Marantz ND8006?
 

BigH

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I'm sorry I don't see the need? You have a cdplayer already? Would not an Oppo 203 or Cambridge equivalent not be a better deal? Streaming is relatively easy now.
 
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QuestForThe13thNote

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Hi Stuart, yes I Agree with bigh. If your requirements are mainly about the sound of the system I’d keep your sources basic, and if you want to be spending a grand on a source when your amp is around £500, think about what an amp in the £1000 to £1500 class will do to the sound of your system if your speakers are decent. I wouldn’t spend much more than £300 on a streamer if I were you, I’d spend the rest of the cash on amplification. What speakers do you have?
 
D

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Note to Quest... The PM8005 was a £1K amp when it was launched!
 
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QuestForThe13thNote

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DougK said:
Note to Quest... The PM8005 was a £1K amp when it was launched!

ok thanks for correcting me. My point is the same though, if you are thinking of spending a grand or more on a source when you have a grand amp, forget it as it’s wasted money. Use the money towards an amp or amp upgrades and keep the streamer basic is my advice, for the streamer is good enough if decent and amplification and speakers largely achieve the best sound not sources nowadays.

maybe the original poster can tell us a bit more on that score if he wants to chat further.
 

Muddywaterstones

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This is exactly the product I envisaged buying a couple of months ago. As it wasn't available I picked up a Cambridge CXN and hooked my Cd player in by digital coaxial. At the time Marantz' streamer had me interested. My preferred dealer recommended it wholeheartedly. I'd heard the app was poor and the interface was ugly but it sounded good. If the new model with the cd player had been out 3 months ago I'm not sure I'd have made the same choice.
 

Stuart.W.D

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think about what an amp in the £1000 to £1500 class will do to the sound of your system if your speakers are decent. What speakers do you have?

Hi my PM8005 originally retailed at £1000 and still retails in Ireland for over €1000. Regards Speakers Ls50s, my disc spinner is CD6005, ND8006 has a better dac to my CD6005, so the sound should sound different, plus high res audio playback appeals to me. i originally tested the PM6006 and the PM8005 performance is much more neutral. So i am looking for an upgrade in performance along with the bells and whistles.
 

Stuart.W.D

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Thanks for your feedback, that's a shame regards the app etc. How did the older Marantz fair against the Cambridge CXN on sound quality? I guess that's why the ND8006 is very appealing, adding streaming and high res audio CD playback into one box.
 
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QuestForThe13thNote

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The ls50s are great speakers that lots of people know about and are the type you can get lots more out of them with amp upgrades.

But if you are, don’t be sucked into this idea that hi res streaming is some kind of zenith of music quality that will transform a system. It doesn’t. In my view much of the added benefits of improving sound quality can be, on a pound for pound basis, achieved through amplification and speakers but in your case I wouldn’t advocate changing those kefs which are great. So up to a level, every pound you spent on a streamer would have less of an added benefit to overall sound quality than spending same cash on amplification.

Sources are sources which nowadays are all pretty good, and you could add something like a £300 quid sonos connect to your system, a £500 bluesound node 2, a £700 ish Cambridge Audio cxn or the £1k marantz you are looking at and in sound quality terms they will all be relatively similar. However if you could spend say £300 of the £1000 on a steamer and £700 on a power amp and use your intergrated as a pre and drive those speakers better (at the moment your amp is only outputting 70w at the kefs 8ohms whereas they have headroom to 100w), they will sound a lot better than any hi res format could achieve. Punchier bass, better slam and just more musically real. Greater power will give the kefs better dynamic headroom.

I think the issue you have is that marantz has a expensive power amp in the £2500 pm11s3, and if you wanted to stick with marantz and use your current amp as a pre. Then it depends if you want to stick with the intergrated or pre and power route. If the former, then I think you could use the money to change your intergrated to a better marantz intergrated. There are also great amps around £1500 which would be an improvement on your amp from likes of primare , Hegel, creek, cyrus, rega etc. Whatever sounds good to you with the kefs for your taste. If you really like the marantz sound then I think I’d upgrade to a better marantz amp, and bung on a relatively inexpensive streamer like a sonos connect. If you sold your amp for say £250 and put another £1250 towards an amp, you’d be going into much better amp territory.

another option is to buy an intergrated pre amp with a streamer built in that has better dacs than your marantz. The Yamaha pre amp streamer springs to mind, but I’m sure you could do better. Look at chord dacs? You’d just use the marantz as a power amp slave bypassing it’s dacs.

i still think though the best option is probably a new intergrated amplifier designed to work and perform better as one and inexpensive streamer added on, to get the best of both worlds. The idea of a new dac in a pre amp is a good one in theory but often in an intergrated it’s all about how the pre, power and dac stages all mesh together to get the best sound, which often work better sometimes as one, than separate intergrated and pre and power. Ie use dedicated pre and power or dedicated intergrated if you can. Also a lot to be said in same with similar make pre (with dac) and power amps. The marantz range doesn’t seem to be built around the same kind of pre and power ideal of cyrus or naim etc for upgrading boxes and building a system of pre and power amplifiers, if that’s what you might want to do in future, so it begs the question that if marantz don’t have a much better sound to your liking in a different better intergrated up the range on listening, someone else will.

Hope this helps.
 

Muddywaterstones

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I didn't hear them head to head in the same dealers with the same equipment. It was a couple of months ago too, so any impressions would probably not mean a whole lot. Both offer a big muscular sound with the CXN perhaps darker, more detailed, with a crisper attack, whilst from memory, the Marantz is more musical and open. But that would be very nuanced and possibly equipment related. I could happily live with either.

Having said that about the Marantz app above (and it was a factor in my thinking) the Cambridge app isn't up to much either. The best app I played around with was the Yamaha though only for a half an hour or so. The WXC-50, which is considerably cheaper, wouldn't work for me though as I couldn't hook up my 14 year-old Rotel CD player through it. I had the feeling my disc spinner was holding back my system and the CXN has certainly lifted it a level or two.

I'm sure the Marantz would have brought it on too which makes the new model interesting as it reduces the box count while improving the system. It's too late for me now but if I was in the market I would be seriously looking at this.
 

Stuart.W.D

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Thanks again for your input it's been very helpful and much appreciated! I just hope the one box solution doesn't affect the overall performance, especially as the SA8005 was highly regarded as a disc spinner, and the NA8005 on a sound performance aspect anyway doing a decent job.
 

Stuart.W.D

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Thanks for your very detailed response, it's certainly food for thought. Unfortunately i am not looking to offload my amplifier as i only bought it brand new in October, plus i like the combo with the Ls50s, overall for my apartment i feel the 70w meets my needs. I guess to cut a long story short you don't think i will see much of a leap in CD playback via my CD6005 to NA8006 then.
 

BigH

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Can't you just stream music through your SA8005 from a computer or tablet or phone?

I would expect the ND8006 to be very similar to your SA8005 for cds.
 
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QuestForThe13thNote

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Yes I don’t think you will. Whereas they used to say poor source in equals poor sound out, and this was very much 70s - 90s thinking mainly based on vinyl, most digital sources are so good now you can get cheap streamers sounding fantastic.

it’s not the size of apartment that determines how much power you need. I live in a small flat and listen at modest to low levels most of the time but have 200 watt mono amps into each channel. This power allows the drum beat to have the dynamic headroom to get there quickly and sound real and fast. Less power copes less well with that. Most people probably would only need 25 watt amps or maybe less for the perspective of the modest volume levels most people listen at. But that’s not the point. What they are buying with quality amps with powerful headroom is the ability to sound real and dynamic, so I’d definetly factor that into your judgements about what you do and what you are trying to achieve with upgrades. Happy new year.
 

Stuart.W.D

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So what would be a reasonable price for a pre-amp to add to my PM8005? Could anything be had for around the £600- £800 mark and work well with the LS50's? Or do i need to spIash out over £1000, If i could buy a pre-amp for under £800, i could add £400 - £500 on a streamer if i ditch the Marantz route. I am sure i will still test the NA8006, but i am certainly grateful for people helping me out and advising me on alternatives.

Happy new year all have a good one!
 
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QuestForThe13thNote

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As I say I always think it’s best to stick with either an intergrated or dedicated pre and power, really depends on what you want to do future wise,if anything. I wouldn’t be Inclined to put a pre to use your marantz as a power amp, in best case set up. Some might not agree. If a different make or better marantz intergrated amp Sounds better to you, I’d be inclined to look at that as an upgrade factoring in used price of your amp which you could put towards the new amp. Then add something like a node 2streamer which before Xmas you could get for 100 off it’s £500 price. You could also route CD players into its good dacs if digital out . That is a fantastic streamer and competes well with my £1300 cyrus streamer which I’ve tested side by side. Obviously if you do a pre and power route it’s more expensive but the marantz with the range available, might not be best possible to do pre and power as they don’t sell pre amps I don’t think.often many makes don’t do pre and power very well, as all intergrated, which is what I like about cyrus, naim etc. Separation good but less of an issue good with modern intergrateds
 
D

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If you can wait about 18-24 months the Marantz ND will probably drop to just over half price. You only have to look at all their previous models to see what happens to new models pricing. However, it would appear that the ND does not support SACD playback...

As for power amps and the like why bother increasing you box count for very little in return?
 

Blacksabbath25

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Well I see Marantz has brought out a replacement for the PM8005 which is now a PM8006 and changing the SA8005 to a NA8006 which does streaming this time around .

small changes to the Marantz PM8006 but big changes to the NA8006

what would I do keep what you have now and buy a Yamaha wxc50 Pre for £299 which is very good streaming device for the money and like Doug has said the Marantz NA will be cheaper to buy 18 months down the road but it will be no different then using a cheaper streamer and you would lose the sacd function of the SA8005 which I do not understand why Marantz has dropped this with the new NA8006 .

the other thing you could do is upgrade to better speakers as the Marantz PM8005 is a very good amplifier and would benefit to upgrade the speakers to something better then the Kefs
 
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I'm sure the OP won't mind a short detour *biggrin*

My turntable history has been quite limited: Project DC > Pioneer PLX100 > Marantz TT15. Each change has seen an improvement but none as marked as the step from Pioneer to Marantz. Marantz came with a bundled cartridge but I've never used it as I favour Nagaoka. I've not heard any of the offerings from Project or Rega in this price bracket so I can't really comment. Main reason for purchasing the Marantz was I like their gear and I got it for a steal, (about £1100 delivered), so it was a no-brainer for me. And before anyone mentions it I am aware that the Marantz is a re-badged Clearaudio Emotion *smile*

Personally I find it a beautifully engineered turntable and it sounds exquisite when fed with decent vinyl, only drawback is that it doesn't come with a lid!

If you want to continue the discussion post a question in the turntable forum as I'm not the only Marantz owner on here *biggrin*
 

Stuart.W.D

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@Blackabbath25

What was your overall experience of the Marantz PM8005 like for you, if you don't mind me asking what set up did you have with the PM8005 and what made you switch over to Yamaha.
I do like the KEF sound, but from your own experience with this amp, would you say the PM8005 can drive a more luxurious speaker than the LS50's?

Oh your right no SACD on the new model that's a shame, especially as the SA8005 won the eisa awards a couple of years ago. More food for thought. This Hi-Fi game can be tricky at times, but it's sure is damn fun trying to put it all together.
 

Blacksabbath25

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The Marantz PM8005 is a good amplifier but at the time I felt that the Marantz had a odd Way of managing the bass it was over done and a bit muddy it’s hard to explain but going from the Marantz to a Yamaha I felt that the Yamaha managed the bass a lot better and was much cleaner sounding and detailed which I like but both amplifiers I had the same speakers at the time which were the Dali opticon 6s but the opticon 6s sounded a lot better with the Yamaha which pushed more out of the Dalis sonically then Marantz did .

I also felt the feelings that I was not satisfied with the Marantz which I could of gone up the ladder a lot more with Marantz but again I thought this would not change anything so changed to the Yamaha A-S2100 which was a perfect match to Dali opticon 6 And now 8s And ever since then I have felt no need to upgrade anything I am completely satisfied with the sound I’ve got now .

i use the Yamaha wxc50 streamer though my Yamaha A-Cd2100 player using its onboard Dac though co-axe which is better then the Yamaha wxc50 own Dac so you would end up with amplifier and Cd player with a small Yamaha Wxc50 which you can stand on end or have it flat and it’s a very good streaming device for the money and you could use it with your current setup the same way as I’ve done with my setup .
 

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