I'm disappointed when you comment that the Marantz has little competition at its price point, only mentioning the Integra 40.1 when there is the Emotiva UMC-1. The UMC-1 shares many of the same type quality goodies that the Marantz does, has better bass management and many feel it sounds better with music than the Marantz. It is also HALF the price of the Marantz. Whats even more puzzling is the Emotiva is being advertised right on the same page as your review but you seem blind to the fact that it exists.

I guess I'm not surprised because you never review any of the Emotiva products even though they are considered by many in the industry as super value bargains out performing other products costing 3-5 times as much.

Why is that?

Pg

I am the owner of an Emotiva preamp processor LMC1, and I am very pleased with the performance of this Emotiva product and the tech support of the company. I would LOVE to own this Marantz but I do not have that kind of money. I do think Emotiva products need to be seen more by these websites. They are quality. I also own their 5 channel power Amp.

I own the UMC-1 and also have an Denon AVP8000 which is a bit older but it sold for $3500 back in the 90's. The UMC-1 holds up quite well sonically against the Denon and save for firmware issues (which are now resolved), it is a delight to own. In fact over time, I've have acquired (2) XPA-1's, an XPA-2 and XPA-5 (power amps) and a ERC-1 CD player. I think all these products are superb and are well worth their asking price. I would put my XPA-1 (500 wpc) monobloc power amps ($995) up against anything shy of $5,000.00 to $7,000.00 and they would compete quite nicely.

While I like this website, they are truly enamored by the Krells, Classe's and McIntosh's of the world.......Even though "some" of the high end gear has a little secret I really can't talk about.....

They seem to ignore Emotiva - its almost like they are afraid to review their products.... I'd love to see a shootout between some of the Emotiva products and the "esoteric" brands that they gush over here on a regular basis.

Fat chance of that happening...

Pg

I have a Marantz Sr6003 AV and I love it.. This pre/pro is good if your want balanced output at a reasonable price.
The Emotiva UMC 1 is well priced but one can get AV receivers from Marantz, Onkyo, Denon and Pioneer for about the same price with 7.1 + pre/outs.
Those systems mentioned would give users who are looking to get external amps a way to upgrade as money permits. For me, I use my Emotiva XPA-3 (cheaper than the xpa-5) for my fronts and use my Marantz to power the rears.
But going back to the Marantz pre/pro.. this I think is the only real cost effective solution if you want Balanced out to your amps.

Are the preouts really balanced? I believe they are not. The only reason to use the XLR connectors are for noise, usually in long cable runs. There is no sonic benefit. None. For about the same price of the AV 7005 you can have a UMC-1 and a XPA-5 which from a power standpoint will out perform any AV receiver that I know of...... 200 "real" wpc x 5 into 8 ohms and 300 "real" wpc x 5 into 4 ohms. Full bandwidth, all channels driven simultaneously...

No receiver can do that. I don't think the Marantz power amps can either......

Just sayin..... :-)

Porscheguy,

With regards to your comment about Emotiva, everyone here at HTR is well aware of the name and manufacturer -in fact, we're all HUGE fans. First, with respect to the above review I believe the writer said "with respect to price" when talking about competition, obviously the UMC-1 is a competitor however we were trying to keep thing fair by comparing the Marantz to other, similarly priced, pre/pros. If we were to include then UMC-1 into the argument at nearly half the price then we should also include Integra's 80.2 or perhaps even Anthem's offerings. It was an editorial decision and not one designed to slight Emotiva in any way.

As for this websites lack of Emotiva reviews I can assure you and everyone reading this it's not for a lack of trying. Several times we've had Emotiva reviews lined up but due to product cycles (Emotiva tends to surprise us with new gear more frequently than others), updates (firmware, version 2s etc) and/or scheduling conflicts reviews have fallen through or been pushed back.

Another factor that has kept us from doing Emotiva reviews is the sheer fact that their products ARE so popular they've simply run out of stock. I can't fault a company who would rather make sure all their customer orders ship first rather than drop everything to make sure a freeloading reviewer (jk) can have their free preamp for a few months.

We continually work with Emotiva and never stop requesting their products for review for we know that many of you like the brand and have their products but sometimes we can't always get the gear we ask for.

Best,

Andrew Robinson
Managing Editor

I appreciate your candor and look forward to your reviewing some of the Emotiva product line. In particular the XPA-1's. They have no peer in the monobloc world at $995.00. They are detailed, nuanced, dead silent and fully balanced to boot.

I'd love you to compare them them to a big dollar Krell or similar product - you would be surprised....

Best!

Ed
"porscheguy"

There is no product I want to review more than Emotiva's XPA-1 monoblocks.

Best,
Andrew Robinson
Managing Editor

From Marantz site http://us.marantz.com/us/Products/Pages/ProductDetails.aspx?CatId=AVSeparates&SubCatId=0&ProductId=AV7005
The unit has both balanced and unbalanced connections.

I did not mean to imply that the power of a receiver could really match that of a dedicated AMP(unless its the really expensive stuff).
Let's suppose your getting into the home theater game. You don't have a lot of money ($800) for the AV components and about $1200 for a 7.1 speaker setup. You got your speakers so the $1200 is gone. Now you have $800 to spend and you buy the UMC-1...hmmm how are you gonna power your speakers? You don't have anymore money to spend. You'll have to wait another 8 months to scrape up another $800-900 to get a an XPA-5... Great... You're home theater is currently useless.
But if you had purchased an Onkyo TX-NR808 for about $650.. You can still power your speaker and have a working 7.1 home theater. Then later, you can pickup that XPA-5 and (2) XPA1's when money comes in.

porscheguy,
If you're gonna ask for such a comparison review (Emotiva XP1 vs a Krell Mono block) then you'll need a review site which uses measuring tools to see the hard numbers to show which amp falls short in things like: Power Bandwidth vs Distortion, Frequency Response, Amplifier Power & Efficiency, FFT Distortion Analysis, etc, etc, etc..
Make it be clear... I'M NOT KNOCKING HOME THEATER REVIEW at all. It's a great site. They review equipment differently from the other sites I visit.. I want no misunderstandings...

Well if your on a tight budget, you have no choice. But $1700 buys a UMC-1/XPA-5 combination and that less that a lot of receivers at Best Buy. That was my point. Make sure you get that XPA-1's :-). Compare that to the AV7005 and MM 8003 at $4000.00 and the Marantz duo cannot make the power that the XPA-5 can........at more than twice the price!!

As to balanced out's, they have no sonic merit and are only truly balanced when used with a fully balanced amp like the XPA-1's

Porscheguy,
"Well if your on a tight budget, you have no choice. But $1700 buys a UMC-1/XPA-5 combination and that less that a lot of receivers at Best Buy"
LOL, dude.... I hope you don't buy your gear at Best (rip-off) Buy.
Balanced outs are mostly used for long runs but just suppose your setup is noisy because you have a lot of EMI and RFI contamination going into your system. Even in short runs, balanced can help reduce the noise.
Besides Xlr looks so much grown up and cooler than standard RCA connectors :D

What I would like to see is another (maybe 2 or 3) other companies give Emotiva competitions it terms of Price and performance. Outlaw is the only other brand with reasonable prices but still more expensive than Emotiva gear. But when you buy Outlaw, you buy AMERICAN made..

"God Bless America,
Land that I love.
Stand beside her, and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam
God bless America, My home sweet home."

all in good fun...

I agree with Andrew's comments about Emotiva. They offer stellar performance and value, and the UMC-1 is an outstanding value in the preamp market. I wish I had the opportunity to hear one first hand.

For the purpose of this review, I tried to limit my comparison to other products similarly priced. Granted, the UMC-1 is only $800 less than the AV7005, but at $1499 for the Marantz, that's almost half the price.

I do think it's great that we are having this conversation. I find that any time a manufacturer provides a product that combines both performance and value, you tend to get some polarized opinions. You can read my thoughts on Emotiva's power amps here. http://www.hometheaterspot.com/showtopic.php?tid/145302/

Back to Marantz, it too falls into the value + performance category. I think that anyone looking to get into separates will find this product more than capable. It was pretty gutsy for Marantz to release the AV7005 at a lower price point than its predecessor. I hope that this is a shift in thinking, across the board, from all AV manufacturers. We all may have dreams of owning Krell or Classe preamps, but the AV7005 helps to fill a void that has been largely ignored by most preamp manufacturers.

Thats my point kevon. Look what you can buy for quality when you stay away from Best Buy. While I agree that Marantz makes nice stuff as do Denon and others, you pay a lot more for it because you have a dealer in the middle who is only too happy to take a 50% commission for handing it to you.

The Marantz stuff would be half as much if they sold direct. As to you claim about China, if you thew out everything you owned that was made in China, your house might be pretty empty.

If you want to pay 3-5 times as much for US/N.American made products that are exactly the same you should - I won't stop you.

$7000.00 for an Anthem processor? Great piece but does it perform 10 times better than the UMC-1? Hardly.

Not to be picky, but the Integra 80.2 "which really just gives you 9.2 surround sound processing and Audyssey's MultEQ XT32 all for $2,300" is set apart from the 40.2 by some pretty substantial upgrades. Balanced outputs and 4 independent power supplies along with better DACs, to name just a few. Granted, it's in a different price class.