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Marantz AV7703 AV preamplifier with HEOS Ah, AV separates. Sometimes a single box just isn’t enough.
Sometimes you want more. More than even the best AV receivers can provide. That ‘more’ might be more power, or more refined power. Or sometimes it might even be no additional power at all. In all these cases, the high-end stereo systems of the past show the way — you separate the preamplifier from the power amplifier. Then you can choose each of those individually to better fit your needs.
Equipment
The Marantz AV7703 is the AV equivalent of that hi-fi preamplifier. And being for home theatre it has not two, but lots of channels — 11 main channels, and two subwoofer ones. And this being 2017, it does a great deal more than a traditional preamp. It is itself a source device, delivering all manner of digital media in addition to decoding digital inputs to analogue audio. That includes the HEOS platform, giving it app-controlled streaming and multiroom abilities. And of course it handles video, too.
But as a preamp it can drive no regular speakers. For that you need as many amplifiers as you have passive loudspeakers. Or perhaps no amplifiers if you’re using high quality active speakers. For those with unusual loudspeakers which they would be loth to entrust to the amplifier of any AV receiver, the Marantz AV7703 is the kind of front end you need.
It can feed a power amplifier or active speakers using either RCA or balanced XLR outputs. Balanced connections are the hefty three-pin plugs used a great deal in pro audio, because balanced connections exhibit high noise rejection. (That’s why they are used with microphones, where often the signal is only a few millivolts and the cables long.) With a metre or so of cable joining the AV7703 to a power amp, and a signal in millivolts, noise is not a problem.
The AV7703 also has plenty of system integration features. Importantly, one of those is a 12V trigger output, to connect to the power amplifier of your choice, so they switch on and off together.
The Marantz AV7703 has a feature set broadly in line with the highest level of Marantz receivers. It can deliver full 7.2.4-channel Dolby Atmos or DTS:X decoded sound from its 11.2 outputs. That is, a full 7.2 channels of surround sound — the best that was available until about four years ago — plus four overhead channels. The AV7703 manages its two subwoofer outputs separately so it’s a real ‘.2’.
In addition to decoding such things as Dolby Atmos and DTS:X and other lesser formats, it can perform Dolby Surround and DTS Neural:X processing to convert two-channel and multichannel sources into full 11.2channel sound. You can purchase (for €149) a firmware upgrade to incorporate Auro-3D processing.
As a source the AV7703 provides AM/FM radio, and extensive network audio capabilities, including streaming from internet radio stations and Spotify Connect, Apple AirPlay and DLNA audio. And Bluetooth (SBC codec only, not the higher quality AAC or aptX codecs).
Plus external sources of course — the socketry is significant, as you can see from the rear panel here! There are eight HDMI inputs and two main HDMI outputs (plus a dedicated second zone HDMI output). All are rated to handle (and did in fact handle during our use of the unit) full 4K output from Ultra HD Blu-ray discs at up to 60 frames per second. There are also component and composite video inputs and outputs, optical and coaxial digital audio inputs, and a sufficient number of analogue audio inputs. These include a phono input suitable for turntables having moving-magnet cartridges.
This is a large, proud unit. It stands 185mm tall, not counting the 70mm extra of the two rear-mounted Wi-Fi/Bluetooth antennas. A fold-up panel covers most of the complexities, leaving only a power/standby button, volume knob, input knob and a round display visible. This 50mm display shows things like input selected and volume level.
Under the flap is a much larger rectangular display which shows the things normally shown by an AV receiver’s display. There are also various control switches, a 6.5mm headphone output, an HDMI input, a USB connection, a set of AV inputs and a calibration microphone socket.
Performance
The AV7703 has a set-up wizard which runs automatically the first time you fire it up. It will be familiar to anyone who’s installed a recent Marantz receiver. In general, the instructions are very detailed and easy to follow. It tells you, for example, how to strip speaker cable and attach it to the binding posts of the power amplifier. Then for each output you have to specify whether you’re using XLR or RCA outputs — which allows you to mix and match.
As it happens, the firmware version number here was identical to that for the Marantz SR7011 receiver which we recently reviewed in Sound+Image. Which makes sense. The firmware does almost nothing with regard to the power; it’s all about processing.
We wired it into a very high quality 11-channel power amplifier. The Audyssey calibration worked surely and effectively, and chose values of which we approve for speaker size and crossovers. We left off the Audyssey extras like Dynamic EQ which, we think, adversely affects sound quality.
And then we proceeded to enjoy a great deal of program material. We concentrated on three things: two-channel content recorded from HD stations on our PVR, Ultra HD Blu-ray discs, and network audio.
Disc after Ultra HD Blu-ray disc delivered magnificent performance. Colour and resolution passthrough to a 65-inch OLED was pretty much perfect. We had to dial around 120ms of audio delay into the preamp because the TV, unlike the AV7703, doesn’t support auto lip sync over HDMI. That done, everything about the picture and sound was a delight.
Not quite as good on the picture front was our PVR viewing, particularly due to the colour banding — but that was entirely from the source. We started watching Season 3 of Fargo — a truly great show — which this year is being delivered at 1080i on free-to-air TV. But the audio is still only two channels. However it soon became apparent that it had been created in multichannel, and enough of that survived the mixdown to allow the AV7703’s Dolby Surround processing to perform wonders. Early in the first episode the sound perfectly tracks the footsteps down the right side of the room to behind us, followed by a closing door. It might as well have been 5.1.
With network audio, our 24-bit/192kHz FLAC music files from the network were rendered perfectly, as were both regular and double-rate Direct Stream Digital files. The bandwidth available over the Wi-Fi network connection (dual band) proved plenty to support these streams.
The receiver also worked with the HEOS multiroom system. We had a couple of standard HEOS wireless speakers to hand, and using the fine HEOS app on an iPad Mini 4 we were able to control the AV7703, group it with the HEOS speakers or have all running separate content. Best of all, we found we could use the app to select an input on the AV7703 and send it to one of the HEOS speakers, even while the Marantz continued playing an Ultra HD Blu-ray disc in the main room. That worked even with the turntable plugged into the phono input.
Conclusion
Clearly the Marantz AV7703 is for those who want the highest performance, along with the ability to choose their own power amplification. HEOS is icing on top of an already huge cake. It does the job brilliantly.