By Ty Pendlebury, CNET.com.au
27/04/2009
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/home_av/others/0,39037618,43868494p,00.htm

The Marantz SR6003 is one of the company's most cutting-edge receivers in about, ooh, five years. It features a classic build, superb sounds and tip-top usability. This is one of the best A/V receivers we've seen in a long time.

Design

The SR6003 receivers from Marantz have gone for a different look than previous designs. It's curvier, more sophisticated, and yet also much simpler. You'll find only two dials on the fascia of the SR6003--volume and input selection. All the other controls like the Menu and direction buttons are hidden under a spring-loaded flap. The amp comes in two colors--classic black and New Silver which is actually closer to Rose Gold.

In the center of the receiver is a wide LED display and the most "Denon-looking" one yet. Of course, there's a reason it looks like this--both manufacturers are owned by the same company. That's not to say it's a poor screen--if anything, it's certainly easier to read than the equivalent Sony, for example.

The remote is quite functional, but perhaps not the most stylish the company has ever released. We still have fond memories of the almost porcelain-finished remote shipped with the older SR7200. While the new version is a learning model, we'd still plump for a Logitech Harmony One.

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.

Performance

As expected from a company that prides itself on audio, the Marantz is nothing short of thrilling. It was adept at movie soundtracks as it was with music in our tests, and the surprising thing was that it was able to keep up on most counts with the more expensive Rotel.

Like many of the receivers we've seen recently, the Marantz features an auto-calibration routine. Even though it was less time-consuming, and therefore presumably less thorough than others, the results were some of the most convincing we've seen in a while. While the current trend is for an overwhelming LFE (Low Frequency Effects) channel to give you that "trouser-flapping" feeling, the Marantz's setup routine provides excellent integration of bass effects and surround channels. Nowhere was this more evident than when decoding a Dolby TrueHD stream from the Spider-Man 3 Blu-ray. The rooftop chase scene between the new Green Goblin and Peter Parker gave us the chills. This is how home cinema should be!

DVD replay was just as exciting and the Dolby EX mix of the Bridge of Khazad-dum from The Fellowship of the Ring was handled with sure-handed restraint and just as exciting and affecting as ever. Affecting why? Well, we don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it, but Gandalf totally carks it.

As befits the Marantz heritage, the SR6003 is very good at replaying music. We used the onboard DAC and found the receiver very good at locking stereo instruments in place, though not as pin-sharp as the Sony. Listening to Ben Harper's Widow of a Living Man was natural-sounding, though maybe a little "smeared" in comparison to the accurate imaging of the Japanese machine. Rock music was equally assured. Only when it got up to 100dB reference levels did the bass from our Nick Cave test track become a little woolly--though this could also be due to the B&W speakers we used for testing.

Lastly, we tried the USB input with a thumbdrive filled with music. It did something with the track order we hadn't seen before. It made up its own set order at random. While some will just play tracks alphabetically, and even fewer will play (correctly) by the track order number, the Marantz spat them out as it felt like. Still, files ripped at 320Kbps sounded great and didn't really need the M-DAX equalizer. The playback screen was a bit dull, but at least the amp used a screensaver.