Marantz SR6003 A/V receiver

Print

Email

Bookmark

Share

Features

The SR6003 is a fully featured receiver with a high power output at 100W x 7, though knowing Marantz, this is likely to be conservative as well. Needless to say, it should be capable of driving all but the most esoteric of speakers.

As a modern receiver, it supports the latest HD standards--Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. And while there are still only a handful of players that can output these streams natively, the list is definitely growing. As these formats are still relatively new, being able to offload them to higher-quality digital-to-analog converters (DAC) will have a better result than relying on the decoders of budget players.

We were a little disappointed to see the receiver offering the bare minimum of three HDMI 1.3a inputs--which will fill up really quickly--but it does come with two outputs. This means you can connect to both a projector and a plasma at the same time.

The SR6003 features a color onscreen graphics user interface. But it's not as pretty-looking as the Sony STRDA5400's menu and it's really just replacing the traditional black background with blue and sharper text, though it's easier to use than those on both the Sony and Rotel models. We really like the ability to view each source and their inputs on a single screen, and to change them on the fly. This makes the setup a breeze.

Like its competitors, the Marantz features a video upconverter/upscaler which will output video at up to 1080p. On the audio side you can make the most of MP3 files with a USB input and the "M-DAX" music enhancer. As with most other musical-sounding amplifiers, the Marantz comes with Pure Direct which turns off video circuits and the display; however, unlike some competitors, there was no real effect from turning it off or on.

Tags: Light-emitting Diode, Sony Corp., manufacturer, Marantz

« Design | Performance »