Marantz AV8801 11.2 Channel Home Theater Pre-Amplifier/Processor (Discontinued by Manufacturer)

The short review: In summary, I'm thrilled. The sound is amazing. Immediate, audible, improvement. Musical, convincing reproduction of audio and movie soundtracks. I highly recommend the AV8801.The long review:The AV8801 is the third Marantz home theater preamplifier I have owned, it is replacing a very capable AV9000, which replaced an AV550. It is the sixth piece of Marantz gear I have owned. The AV9000 I am replacing is from an era well before affordable room calibration such as Audyssey and also before HDMI was standard issue on AV gear.I am fortunate to have owned or currently own excellent equipment from Rotel, Snell, MartinLogan, Magnepan, Sunfire, Oppo, Sony ES, Onkyo, Denon, Monster Power, Boston Acoustics, NAD, and the list goes on. I truly enjoy music, movies, and the gear which reproduces it in my home. I don’t believe you have to spend a fortune to have enjoyable sound...but when the budget allows, I want to introduce upgrades which add to the experience. The AV8801 is certainly not in the category of "inexpensive". But it's absolutely a great value.My previous AV9000, which I replaced with the AV8801, still sounds great, but while it was advanced for its time, in today's era of "HDMI" and continually updating home theater specs and standards, it was time to upgrade. I read some positive reviews on the AV8801, and after being impressed with the performance of a recently purchased "bargain" Denon E300 receiver with Audyssey Bronze (Denon and Marantz are related; the GUI software and many feature sets used across their products is nearly identical) I use in an upstairs game room system, I decided I could no longer live without upgrading my trusty AV9000 I've had since approximately 2001. (I keep stuff a LONG time).I have to say the AV8801 is one of the most satisfying audio purchases I have ever made. It is excellent, and as other reviewers have commented, this upgrade will make a VERY audible, and at times astounding, difference in your system - it certainly did in mine! I was expecting good results and I got GREAT results. My home theater "room" is a challenging one. Rather than a dedicated theater room, I am using a very large main "family room" with 17 foot ceiling, hardwood floors, and open to a kitchen. That's what I've got, so that's what I use. The speaker placement is less than ideal (Snell speakers, mounted high on walls) and the acoustics are at best, challenging. Still, I'm a tweaker and I managed to get very good sound in that room with even with my AV9000. I was wondering if Audyssey could improve things even more.Audyssey is new to me, and I was skeptical. Nevertheless, I ran the setup routine and I'm very impressed. It was able to tune up my very difficult room and though I continue to tweak the settings, I am thrilled with what I have so far and I know it will only get better. I have been experimenting with different settings and different ways of placing the (included) measurement microphone. If you're a tweaker, you'll have lots of fun with this. If you prefer to "set it and forget it", you'll also be happy because the AV8001 caters to both types.In short, Audyssey has definitely added to the experience. I immediately disabled Audyssey Dynamic Volume though (which is enabled by default by the setup assistant for some reason); in my application I have no need for the compression applied by Dynamic Volume. Dynamic Volume serves its purpose for those who wish to listen "late night", but that's not me. LOUD is my favorite volume level. If "sensible" is your preference for volume, Dynamic Volume will surely help with the "constantly raising and lowering the volume" problem common in explosive action movies. I do occasionally enable the "dialog enhancer" for movies, which absolutely helps to make dialog easier to understand in my difficult room. The adjustable and defeatable dialog enhancer is a massive improvement over what I used to do, which was to raise the volume of the center channel (this setting was cumbersome to access quickly) during movies and then lower it back down for sources which didn't need it. The AV8801 puts this feature in easy reach so you can enable/disable it quickly with no hassle, and settings are remembered for each source as well. That's another massive improvement over previous equipment. (This isn't special to the AV8801 - I know it's a common feature in most current AV gear). One of the best improvements I can attribute to Audyssey, as well as the flexibility afforded by the 8801, is the ability to vary the crossover points for transition between main speakers and subwoofers. The one issue I could not get “exactly right” in previous setups was crossover points. Audyssey helps to set these scientifically, through measurement. The “holes” in the soundstage due to wrong crossover points are now gone.I only use 5 channels of surround sound, recently moving from 5.1 to 5.2, after adding a second subwoofer. The AV8801 is capable of 11 channels. I'm glad it can handle all those channels - but I'm pleased with 5 and if I spend more money, it will be to use my budget on 5 awesome speakers instead of 11 "pretty good" speakers, and the same is true for amplification. But I digress. Why did I buy the 11 channel AV8801 when all I really needed was the (significantly) less expensive AV7701 to support 7 channels?The AV8801 has Audyssey MultiEQ XT32, an even better level of Audyssey than the AV7701 and as far as I know it is as good as Audyssey gets without upgrading to the "Pro" version - which, for a fee, can be done with the AV8801. AV8801 has superior 32-bit DAC's over the AV7701 , which are very important to me, and it features a torroidal transformer as well. These features, to me, are beneficial regardless of the number of channels in my theater. Both the AV8801 and AV7701 handle two subwoofers, but AV8801 also adds Audyssey SubEQHT - offering just a few more features for subwoofer tweaking and that appealed to me as well. There are some other upgrades on the 8801 over the 7701 as well; the ones I listed are the ones which contribute to improved sound reproduction, ultimately the characteristic which is most important to me.I am still exploring all the features and capabilities of this amazing piece of equipment. I can say it sounds great, and I'm also quite impressed at how great video looks after passing through the AV8801 which includes a video processor. This is my first home theater preamp with video processing features and I have a lot to learn in that area. In short, it could be my imagination, but running HD sources through the AV8801, rather than directly connected to my 2013 Samsung 75" LED TV, the picture is just astounding. I won't get into using "audiophile terms" like "transparent" and "black background" and yadda yadda. For me, it’s easier than that. If you can tap your feet and follow the music, and enjoy the sound without fatigue, and look forward to listening again, the sound is pleasing. At some point, you're enjoying the performance and not thinking about the "sound" anymore. That's the goal - enjoy the music because it sounds natural, it sounds right, and you feel connected to it. And there is more of this with the AV8801 than before it was in my system. Some systems are a relief when they are turned off. With the AV8801 in place, I want my system on ALL THE TIME.The AV8801 is not without its glitches; some of them may be firmware related, and some of them may be user-knowledge related. None of them would prevent me from fully recommending this amazing component and I'm expecting at least a few of these to go away when I learn more and with firmware updates:• I can't get ARC (Audio Return Channel) to work. My TV supports it and the AV8801 certainly does. My HDMI cable also supports it. For now, optical digital cable provides audio from broadcast TV. If and when I figure this out, I will update.• I'm glad to see DSD is regaining popularity, mostly through online downloads rather than via SACD media; I am not totally confident I have correctly configured my equipment to process DSD material without up-converting/down-converting. I'm still working on that and will post an update.• The supplied remote control is "pretty good" but you'll probably use a more sophisticated, fully programmable remote. Still, programming a remote takes time so I'd like to set up the included remote for controlling my other gear and my reasoning says that if I can spend a few minutes entering preconfigured codes, I may as well do it. However, so far I find the included library of remote setup codes does not fully support all my equipment - particularly my OPPO BDP-103 and my Samsung TV. This is another area I'm still researching. So much for quick! The supplied remote will “learn”, however, so if this is your only remote with a little time you can set it up even if the preconfigured codes don’t work.• I'm not new to Airplay; I've been using Apple TV devices to provide airplay support for a couple of years now. The AV8801 also supports AirPlay, but is sometimes is a bit glitchy when doing airplay streaming (on-screen graphics sometimes flicker to green background during AirPlay) - but again I think this is firmware and hopefully it will be addressed.• I know "nobody" uses S-Video anymore, but I have some older sources with S-Video because I have material in that format that I want to be able to use, even though the picture just isn't all that great. I wish there were a couple of S-Video ports on the AV8801, but there are none. I know this is the trend with AV equipment for reasons which I fully understand. However, some flexibility would be nice! I solved the problem with an S-Video to HDMI converter. Several are available on Amazon for less than $50 and that does the trick.In summary, I'm thrilled. The sound is amazing. Immediate, audible, improvement. Musical, convincing reproduction of audio and movie soundtracks. I highly recommend the AV8801.

Bought this unit to replace my Denon AVP- A1HDCI, It was delivered today. Hooked it up, turned it on and no video. To say I'm pissed would be an understatement. No more Denon/Marantz for me. Will now look at Anthem and Emotiva.

Marantz has made some necessary compromises here because of price guidelines. I would suggest looking for a used Anthem D2 as it's much cheaper and better performing as an audiophile product. If your into internet connections and the hifi scene this is a good choice. If your an audiophile look elsewhere.

When I received the unit, it had a problem with the AM/FM tuner not working. I contacted Amazon and was very pleased with their customer service. They handled the problem and I am very happy with the unit. I would highly recommend purchasing this unit for your home theater.

I purchased this to replace my NAD 748 AVR that I was using as a preamplifier for my Emotiva XPA amps. I can honestly say this was an incredible upgrade to not only the surround sound but stereo mode as well. I cannot believe what I was missing in my movies. This preamp is amazing so if you are thinking about buying it don't hesitate!Update 12-18-2015The main reason I bought this Preamplifier is I was never able to get any bass out of my front speakers that are Polk Audio RTI 12s. No matter what I did with the NAD 748 AVR it would never send bass to the front speakers just either to the Sub when it was turned on in the settings or ignore the settings when turning off the sub and taking out of the system and sending the bass to God only knows where. I thought at first it was my Emotiva XPA-2 that was to blame as I have the same Polk Audio RTI 12s in my other room on a B&K Components Amp connected to a NAD Preamp. I connected the Emotiva XPA-2 to that Preamp and OMG did the RTI 12s pound bass with no need for a sub. I then after reading many reviews on AVRs and this Preamplifier knew I needed to get a Preamplifier as many had complained as I do that the AVRs will not send bass to the front speakers and just in general I have never heard and AVR used as a Preamp sound anywhere near as good as a actual preamplifier. So I bit the bullet and bought this Marantz AV8801 and I could not be happier with the amount of bass it sends not only to my main speakers but to all my surround sound speakers. I am hearing things I have never heard not only in my music but also in movies. This thing has the most incredible surround sound I have ever heard. I swear it is as good or better than any movie theatre I have been too. Buy this Preamplifier it is a steal of a deal at the 60 percent off price I paid for it. Love it!!!