Curtis_Baefield
New member
Marantz has slotted an AV 30 in below the AV 10 and AV 20, and the pitch is the familiar one: most of the flagship processing at a price you can actually reach. The spec sheet backs up the first half of that. It processes 11.4 channels, decodes Atmos, DTS:X, Auro-3D and IMAX Enhanced, runs HDAM-SA2 discrete analogue output modules with 32-bit DACs, and gives you four independently configurable subwoofer outputs. Seven HDMI inputs and three outputs, one of them eARC, all seven inputs rated for 8K, with 8K/60 and 4K/120, HDR10+, Dolby Vision, HLG, plus VRR, ALLM and QFT.
Four separate sub outputs matters to me more than the channel count does. Multi-sub is still the cheapest real improvement most rooms can make, and processors have been stingy about giving you outputs you can address individually rather than two jacks wired in parallel.
Room correction is Audyssey MultEQ XT32 as standard with Dirac Live as a paid upgrade. Everyone in this segment has landed on that arrangement and I still find it annoying. If you have gone to separates, you are already the customer who wants Dirac, and charging again at that point feels like being billed for the reason you walked in.
The part nobody has said out loud yet: there is no price. More attainable is doing heavy lifting in a preview with no number attached. Worth remembering too that a processor at 11.4 means buying eleven channels of amplification behind it, so anyone calling this the affordable route into separates is quietly not counting the amps.
Genuine question for the people running big layouts: does anyone actually hear the wides, or is 7.2.4 still where the useful ceiling sits in a normal room?
Four separate sub outputs matters to me more than the channel count does. Multi-sub is still the cheapest real improvement most rooms can make, and processors have been stingy about giving you outputs you can address individually rather than two jacks wired in parallel.
Room correction is Audyssey MultEQ XT32 as standard with Dirac Live as a paid upgrade. Everyone in this segment has landed on that arrangement and I still find it annoying. If you have gone to separates, you are already the customer who wants Dirac, and charging again at that point feels like being billed for the reason you walked in.
The part nobody has said out loud yet: there is no price. More attainable is doing heavy lifting in a preview with no number attached. Worth remembering too that a processor at 11.4 means buying eleven channels of amplification behind it, so anyone calling this the affordable route into separates is quietly not counting the amps.
Genuine question for the people running big layouts: does anyone actually hear the wides, or is 7.2.4 still where the useful ceiling sits in a normal room?
