Marantz pm 6005 + Monitor Audio Bronze 6

[adam]

Hello,

I would like too kindly ask you experts for your opinion. I have at the moment pair of MA Bronze 6 at home to audition them for a week with my Marantz pm 6005 as in the shop the acoustic is quite different from what I have at home. My questions are :

1. Is my amplifier powerful enough to drive these speakers or is there a danger of damaging them ? I wont be listeting to very loud music levels max 12 oclock position on the volume knob as I have neighbours. MA are rated at 90db so they quite efficient but the minimun requiremets for an amp is 40 w and the pm 6005 is 45 w at 8 ohms.

2. Should I bi-wire ? At the moment I do biwire from A and B output, not because of the sound improvement as i cant hear the difference (but I will replace the bridge with speaker cable if I dont biwire) but can I protect my speakers if I split the load to A and B output or it doesnt matter ? I personally doubt it, but im not an expert. Will it clipp with the Bronze 6 if I put the volume up pass 12 oclock ?

I realy like the warm full sound of these combination but not sure if Im pushing my amp into something that it wont and cant deliver.

Sorry if these are noob questions but I am a hifi noob and need advice. Thank you very much.

 

[Thompsonuxb]

If you only have the speakers on loan don't worry too much about bi-wiring.

If you do already have the speakers bi-wired make sure they are wired correctly - this is important for imaging.

Keep things simple it'll make assessing the speakers easier.

Focus on positioning.

Don't fret about volume either. Start low then turn the amp up in small increments.

Budget amps usually peak around the 9o'clock mark - a well produced CD will tell you how loud is loud, don't look for distortion just because. Keep this in mind if your source is a phone, tablet or pc the quality will vary in comparison to CD.

If 9o'clock is good enough no need to push till 12. Work to the amp not 'figures'

Also start your tone controls at 0 and adjust to taste.

Enjoy.

 

[peterpiper]

Budget amps usually peak around the 9o'clock mark -

dont agree, i have gone through a few budget amps in my life, including marantzpm6004, pm7001 , nad c352, onkyo9030, kenwood 3020se , denon pma720a sansiu aug30x and rotel ra10, non of these peak at 9.00 oclock , and keep getting louder until well past 1200 clock uncomfortably so, albiet with efficient..ish speakers,

btw birwiring is messy and a waste of time imo. no wonder many speakers makers are starting to only give one set of terminals again , and those connecting strips cause more truoble than they are worth , thank god this fad is passing

 

[Andrewjvt]

?

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Budget amps usually peak around the 9o'clock mark -

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dont agree,     i have gone through a few budget amps in my life,  including  marantzpm6004,  pm7001  , nad c352,  onkyo9030, kenwood 3020se , denon pma720a  sansiu aug30x  and rotel ra10,  non of these peak at 9.00 oclock , and keep getting louder until well past 1200 clock uncomfortably so,  albiet with efficient..ish   speakers,

 btw birwiring is messy and a waste of time  imo.   no wonder many speakers makers are starting to only give one set of terminals again , and those connecting strips cause more truoble than they are worth , thank god this fad is passing  

The loudness was not distortion? I ve owned quite a few budget amps and they all peaked by 12 max.

Thompson was just stressing to listen to the sound and not figures on the dial.

Anyone can hear when the sound is stressed

 

[peterpiper]

Budget amps usually peak around the 9o'clock mark -

dont agree, i have gone through a few budget amps in my life, including marantzpm6004, pm7001 , nad c352, onkyo9030, kenwood 3020se , denon pma720a sansiu aug30x and rotel ra10, non of these peak at 9.00 oclock , and keep getting louder until well past 1200 clock uncomfortably so, albiet with efficient..ish speakers,

btw birwiring is messy and a waste of time imo. no wonder many speakers makers are starting to only give one set of terminals again , and those connecting strips cause more truoble than they are worth , thank god this fad is passing

The loudness was not distortion? I ve owned quite a few budget amps and they all peaked by 12 max.

Thompson was just stressing to listen to the sound and not figures on the dial.

Anyone can hear when the sound is stressed

maybe I was exaggerting about 'well passed 12oclock' but what I mean is i have occasionally gone to 1200 oclock with significantly higher volume levels than at 9.00 oclock, with no disortion, I have sensitive ears, and know distortion (clipping and woofers hitting their end stops) just nasty

I felt like the volume could have gone even more before the speakers pop, the nad amp and the rotel and marantz pm7001 mainly,

 

[Andrewjvt]

?

?

Budget amps usually peak around the 9o'clock mark -

?

dont agree,     i have gone through a few budget amps in my life,  including  marantzpm6004,  pm7001  , nad c352,  onkyo9030, kenwood 3020se , denon pma720a  sansiu aug30x  and rotel ra10,  non of these peak at 9.00 oclock , and keep getting louder until well past 1200 clock uncomfortably so,  albiet with efficient..ish   speakers,

 btw birwiring is messy and a waste of time  imo.   no wonder many speakers makers are starting to only give one set of terminals again , and those connecting strips cause more truoble than they are worth , thank god this fad is passing ?

The loudness was not distortion? I ve owned quite a few budget amps and they all peaked by 12 max.

Thompson was just stressing to listen to the sound and not figures on the dial.

Anyone can hear when the sound is stressed

maybe I was exaggerting about 'well passed 12oclock'  but what I mean is i have occasionally gone to 1200 oclock with significantly higher volume levels than at 9.00 oclock,  with no disortion,  I have  sensitive ears,  and know distortion (clipping and woofers hitting their end stops) just nasty

I felt like the volume could have gone even more before the speakers pop, the nad amp and the rotel and marantz pm7001 mainly,

A lot of amps have a high gain being closer to max power at about 12 to give the impression of more power.

Its well documented that louder 'sounds' better.

My old roksan kandy k2 was like this.

Well designed amps dont employ this trick normally

 

[gasolin]

Budget amps usually peak around the 9o'clock mark -

dont agree, i have gone through a few budget amps in my life, including marantzpm6004, pm7001 , nad c352, onkyo9030, kenwood 3020se , denon pma720a sansiu aug30x and rotel ra10, non of these peak at 9.00 oclock , and keep getting louder until well past 1200 clock uncomfortably so, albiet with efficient..ish speakers,

btw birwiring is messy and a waste of time imo. no wonder many speakers makers are starting to only give one set of terminals again , and those connecting strips cause more truoble than they are worth , thank god this fad is passing

with a cdplayer 9'o clock it's loud, around 10'o clock max level, and usually 11'o clock distortion

 

[Thompsonuxb]

?

?

Budget amps usually peak around the 9o'clock mark -

?

dont agree,     i have gone through a few budget amps in my life,  including  marantzpm6004,  pm7001  , nad c352,  onkyo9030, kenwood 3020se , denon pma720a  sansiu aug30x  and rotel ra10,  non of these peak at 9.00 oclock , and keep getting louder until well past 1200 clock uncomfortably so,  albiet with efficient..ish   speakers,

 btw birwiring is messy and a waste of time  imo.   no wonder many speakers makers are starting to only give one set of terminals again , and those connecting strips cause more truoble than they are worth , thank god this fad is passing  

Andrew understood what I meant - I'm going by the rule of thumb.

But Peterpiper that's a fair few amps you've gotten through..... You sure you're not driving them too hard and burning them out?......
*ACUTE*

I currently have a Rotel ra-1520 driving my speaker the predecessor to the ra-12 the big brother to your amp and its as I describe.

Useful for cd's that have a low level eq but a well produced CD, 9.30 before things get a little shakey and above that it loses control of the speakers.

Just saying to the OP.....find the sweet spot is all.

 

[peterpiper]

no have not burned any out *blum3*, just sold them on , over the years, a bit like some other posters on here who have chopped and changed, i still own the denon pma720,

 

[adam]

Thank you for your replies but still got no answer it the Bronze 6 are too much for the Marantz pm 6005 ? Would I be better of with Bronze 5 ? I dont know exactly what it means working the amp. I cant hear any distorsion if I push it very loud but I heard the if the tweeter clipps you cant hear it as it happens. Is it true or not ? Will the Marantz shut down if it clipps to protect the speakers or the amp ?

 

[Thompsonuxb]

Provided you play the amp within thresholds it will drive those speakers. If you like it loud maybe a 'bigger' amp power wise is what you should be looking at.

The 5's will be a better fit as they are most likely easier to drive.

But if the sound with the 6's work for you then I see no problem.

 

[GCE]

... without clipping. above 12 o'clock too; some months ago I did some measures: CD PinkF Dark Side otm - absolutely high volumes ( there were no neighbors! ) , with vol knob at 15 o'clock , (max is 17 hours) and source direct ; in the peaks I digitally tested (average) : Vmax = 14 V/ch and Imax = 1.7 A, for a maximum power of almost 25 W/ch; I generally listen to 9:30 hours max, with my wife coming & asking me for a lower volumes....I've to say that, while the Quad 34 + 306 that I owned before for 20 years , with the same B&W towers, and at a little lower volume, was going in protection (I had to unlock it using the back button) and also warmed up a bit on the smart front radiator, the Marantz instead was almost cold and never gone + in protection. The Quad was also sounding a little harsh and with harder highs, at these levels, while the Pm 6004 has retained a good liquidity on the mid & highs, which were still confortable...; anyway, in everydays normal cd listening, at 9:30, I get only an output of 1 W/ch max on peaks, more punchy bass and similar mid vs Quad!

--------------------------

Yam as 500 in direct comparison with pm 6004 shows more dry, although more diffuse and detailed high frequencies, similar bass punch, but more fatiguing listening overall, for me. I tested this AS 500 for a week at home , but then I changed with Marantz PM 6004 .Yam AS 500 is a very complete amp, but doesn't meet my preferences for a warm sound with my B&W; is a beautifull vintage looking amp, with a lot of features, but no good vol and tone knobs and a delicate front plate for fingerprints when you touch ...Yam as 500 has loudness too and in direct comparison with pm 6004 shows more dry, although more diffuse and detailed high frequencies, similar bass punch, but more fatiguing listening overall, for me. Marantz drives my old B&W 603, like 684, and a ASW 610 sub linked at spkB - highlevel - my room= 30 mq and 90 mc with ease. Just a few thoughts . bye

 

[hybridauth_Facebook_100004211376004]

To the op on his original point 2.your configuration for biwiring is not quite right,speakers a+b should not be employed in this manner.both runs of speaker cable should be connected to one set of speaker terminals per channel and then the speaker itself takes care of splitting the crossover not the amp.you may or may not be putting extra stress on the amp by having the two speaker outputs a+b on all the time.if biamping on the other hand then the runs of cable are split between two amps,one for the hf and the other for the LF.So maybe forget about the biwiring at the moment as it's not really worth the extra cash for the cable imho.

 

[Thompsonuxb]

To the op on his original point 2.your configuration for biwiring is not quite right,speakers a+b should not be employed in this manner.both runs of speaker cable should be connected to one set of speaker terminals per channel and then the speaker itself takes care of splitting the crossover not the amp.you may or may not be putting extra stress on the amp by having the two speaker outputs a+b on all the time.if biamping on the other hand then the runs of cable are split between two amps,one for the hf and the other for the LF.So maybe forget about the biwiring at the moment as it's not really worth the extra cash for the cable imho.

No, thats not right Mark.

An amp with 2sets of speaker outs IS designed to drive two sets of speakers.

Using both sets of terminals to bi-wire is fine.

There are various ways you can run the cable but provided every things in phase and left and right are correct there is no issue.

In fact running two sets of cable from a single speaker terminal is most likely to create problems for an amp.

 

[hybridauth_Facebook_100004211376004]

Whatever,we'll agree to disagree on this point then . I've biamped,biwired and never used speakers b output for either as my previous arcam a85's handbook was quite specific about not having both outputs on together.Also not to drive two pairs of speakers at the same time through the a+b terminals(as a side note)also any terminated biwire I have bought has came with both runs on each channel terminated to single runs of +and- on the amp end and two runs of + and- on the speaker end.then maybe have a wee Google search on biwiring.using two sets of speaker out terminals is definitely not standard practice I'm not saying it doesn't work,but it's not the usual way of approaching it as not every amp has two sets of speaker outputs or dedicated biwiring terminals (I had a Cambridge a500 that did if I remember correctly).

 

[Thompsonuxb]

Fair enough Mark....


But that's interesting what you say as I see no real benefit from running 2sets of cable from one terminal.

Could be one of the reasons you hear no benefit in bi-wiring.

This is how I always bi-wire. In a left/right diagonal config to balance the load.

Both A & B speaker output the same - have there own circuitry - Tweeters are a simple load.

Power 'consumption' and availability of terminals withstanding, I thought this was how everyone did it.

Truth is back in the day I've had single speaker amps bi-wiring causing amps to go into protection.(reason I'd never buy Roksan and Cyrus)

But ok well disagree on this. Truth is we'd have to be in the same room to prove one method over another and if there were any differences in the first place.

 

[hybridauth_Facebook_100004211376004]

No probs.definitely not worth the outlay of the speaker cable anyway.even biamping didn't do a great deal with my old a85/p85 combo,I think to truly get a worthwhile improvement is going the whole monobloc route,but it's going to get pretty expensive then.