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- Joined
- 30 Jun 2006
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- 1,946
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- Cardiff
So for the past few years for my PC setup I have been using a Marantz PM6005. A budget friendly offering which has been recently been reduced in price even more. I got to admit I thought the PM6005 was an amazing amp even though I realise for those who are familiar with the general Marantz sound it falls on the warmer side of neutral. So for some people who prefer the clean, fast detailed sound in general the Marantz won't do anything to convince you otherwise.
But with todays technology and whatnot I started to feel that it connectivity options while I adored the sound was lacking. I need an amp which has Airplay and spotify connect as I use them a lot. So I reluctantly sold it to a friend and bought a Nad D7050.
A Nad D7050 is an all singing and all dancing jack of all trades in a neat and compact enclosure which blends itself in very well with desktop pc music/gaming setups. It ticks all the right boxes that I need from an amplifier. It is also a Class D amplifier. In the past I have avoided amps which were Class D based with a few exceptions notably Jeff Rowland amps. Class D amplifiers have a general reputation as being Dry sounding or put another way they have a clean sterile mechanical sound and generally musically uninvolving. But I took the plunge and ordered one. WIth limited desk space it fit snugly into my setup and I loved it form factor and functionality.
So the speakers I use for my PC setup is B&W PM1 which is a fairly hard speaker to drive at times. WHat makes them hard to drive is the not so much the impedance of the speaker which B&W are well known to have huge impedance drops but rather it sensitivity. The Marantz was only like a 40w RMS but drove the PM 1's nicely. Amplifiers that have huge power rating are not needed for me as I use them in a nearfield setup. So moderately rated amplifiers are fine. However the Nad did not like the PM1's at all or more rather it low sensitivity. To get it roughly the same volume level as my marantz to what I am use to I had to crank it quite a bit up, SO much so that wasn't much more left. On the Marantz it was set at the nine o'clock posistion and that was enough. I generally don't run amps even remotely close to their limit but with D7050 I was pretty close.
There were other things about the NAD which made me finally switch back to Marantz. I could not get the Nad app to work (android) no matter what so it would auto shutdown after a certain amount of time. The fact you could only get it to settings with a mobile app that didn't work even after flashing through numerous versions of the firmware. In the end I did find another app to make it work but not the actual D7050 app itself.
So how did it sound? Well first off the first two things I noticed straightaway was from moving from the PM6005 was it was nowhere as warm sounding as the Marantz was. I wouldn't describe as clean sounding or Sterile but it lacked the warmth of the Marantz and ultimately sounded dry in comparison. It just wasn't as musically involving as the Marantz. Other observations soundwise the bass was adequate it lacked extension of the Marantz. The Marantz has a full body sound and in comparison D7050 sounds leaner. That in itself in not such a bad thing as I can imagine they are quite a few people who do not like the Marantz type of sound which leads me the main concern I had which I knew the Nad amp was not for me. It has a quite good imaging of sound but for some reason the Nad soundstage is a lot smaller sounding than the Marantz or other amps I have heard. This bothered me quite a lot and for some people it may not be an issue but for me I disliked it the moment I heard it which is a shame as there are many things the Nad does that not too many amps can do or if they can they cost a lot more. I mean the functionality is top notch. It small for factor make it ideal for the PC user or a person looking for a compact hi fi setup who doesn't huge amplifiers dominating their room. And by no means is this a bad amp far from it. It just my personal preference for full bodied sound and warmer tonality than the Nad can provide. But for quite a lot of people it is ideal.
So Having made the decision to change it for something else there is not many options under 1k. If I was to go over that budget then sure. I looked at the Marantz HD AMP 1 but when I enquired about it it doesn't do airplay or spotify connect according to some users. And I think another user here posted it and I can allow agree with him/her why is it that the features that are required my music lovers are mostly on AV amps and not on dedicated Stereo amps is beyond me.
So how did I end up with a the Marantz NR1607 which is for all intents and purposes a compact av receiver with an extensive features list. Given that I like my sound warm and needed spotify connect and airplay there were two surefire bets in that category. Denon and Marantz are known for being producing the kind of tonality I like. WIth Onkyo and Pioneer being on the other side of the spectrum. I had to rule out the Denon as I didn't want a big AV amp on my desk. So I went with the MArantz for it half height. It is still wide and has quite a bit of depth and I still lose desktop real estate.
Because it is an AV amp then it going to have a lot of features that most stereo amps don't come close to. But can it match them soundwise? Time will tell as I get use to the sound and will be running it over the weekend.
But with todays technology and whatnot I started to feel that it connectivity options while I adored the sound was lacking. I need an amp which has Airplay and spotify connect as I use them a lot. So I reluctantly sold it to a friend and bought a Nad D7050.
A Nad D7050 is an all singing and all dancing jack of all trades in a neat and compact enclosure which blends itself in very well with desktop pc music/gaming setups. It ticks all the right boxes that I need from an amplifier. It is also a Class D amplifier. In the past I have avoided amps which were Class D based with a few exceptions notably Jeff Rowland amps. Class D amplifiers have a general reputation as being Dry sounding or put another way they have a clean sterile mechanical sound and generally musically uninvolving. But I took the plunge and ordered one. WIth limited desk space it fit snugly into my setup and I loved it form factor and functionality.
So the speakers I use for my PC setup is B&W PM1 which is a fairly hard speaker to drive at times. WHat makes them hard to drive is the not so much the impedance of the speaker which B&W are well known to have huge impedance drops but rather it sensitivity. The Marantz was only like a 40w RMS but drove the PM 1's nicely. Amplifiers that have huge power rating are not needed for me as I use them in a nearfield setup. So moderately rated amplifiers are fine. However the Nad did not like the PM1's at all or more rather it low sensitivity. To get it roughly the same volume level as my marantz to what I am use to I had to crank it quite a bit up, SO much so that wasn't much more left. On the Marantz it was set at the nine o'clock posistion and that was enough. I generally don't run amps even remotely close to their limit but with D7050 I was pretty close.
There were other things about the NAD which made me finally switch back to Marantz. I could not get the Nad app to work (android) no matter what so it would auto shutdown after a certain amount of time. The fact you could only get it to settings with a mobile app that didn't work even after flashing through numerous versions of the firmware. In the end I did find another app to make it work but not the actual D7050 app itself.
So how did it sound? Well first off the first two things I noticed straightaway was from moving from the PM6005 was it was nowhere as warm sounding as the Marantz was. I wouldn't describe as clean sounding or Sterile but it lacked the warmth of the Marantz and ultimately sounded dry in comparison. It just wasn't as musically involving as the Marantz. Other observations soundwise the bass was adequate it lacked extension of the Marantz. The Marantz has a full body sound and in comparison D7050 sounds leaner. That in itself in not such a bad thing as I can imagine they are quite a few people who do not like the Marantz type of sound which leads me the main concern I had which I knew the Nad amp was not for me. It has a quite good imaging of sound but for some reason the Nad soundstage is a lot smaller sounding than the Marantz or other amps I have heard. This bothered me quite a lot and for some people it may not be an issue but for me I disliked it the moment I heard it which is a shame as there are many things the Nad does that not too many amps can do or if they can they cost a lot more. I mean the functionality is top notch. It small for factor make it ideal for the PC user or a person looking for a compact hi fi setup who doesn't huge amplifiers dominating their room. And by no means is this a bad amp far from it. It just my personal preference for full bodied sound and warmer tonality than the Nad can provide. But for quite a lot of people it is ideal.
So Having made the decision to change it for something else there is not many options under 1k. If I was to go over that budget then sure. I looked at the Marantz HD AMP 1 but when I enquired about it it doesn't do airplay or spotify connect according to some users. And I think another user here posted it and I can allow agree with him/her why is it that the features that are required my music lovers are mostly on AV amps and not on dedicated Stereo amps is beyond me.
So how did I end up with a the Marantz NR1607 which is for all intents and purposes a compact av receiver with an extensive features list. Given that I like my sound warm and needed spotify connect and airplay there were two surefire bets in that category. Denon and Marantz are known for being producing the kind of tonality I like. WIth Onkyo and Pioneer being on the other side of the spectrum. I had to rule out the Denon as I didn't want a big AV amp on my desk. So I went with the MArantz for it half height. It is still wide and has quite a bit of depth and I still lose desktop real estate.
Because it is an AV amp then it going to have a lot of features that most stereo amps don't come close to. But can it match them soundwise? Time will tell as I get use to the sound and will be running it over the weekend.
