Are my ears broken? Yamaha beats Marantz, Kenwood, and Rotel?

W

Wuchak

Active Member
I picked up a batch of stuff for a great price of CL. Included was a Rotel RSP960AX sound processor (op $600), Rotel RB-956ax amp (op $500), Rotel RB930ax amp (op $250), and a Yamaha RX-496 receiver (op $299).

I unhooked the Marantz 2220b and Kenwood KR-6600 that I was running paired through Smaller Advents and Advent 3's. I did another post about how much I loved the sound of this setup. I hooked up the Rotel's and sat back expecting great sound. I was greeted with disappointment. Nice highs and mids but no bass. It made the Smaller Advents sound like a set of those 4" surround speakers. The sound was clean but nothing special. I hooked just the KR-6600 back up to the Smaller Advents and it toasted the Rotel setup. Much more musical sound and it puts enough bass out in the Advents that it almost sounds like there is a sub in the room. Not boomy at all, just nice thump and a nice resonance on low strings.

I decided to give the Yamaha a try. This was a bonus that came along with the Rotel deal and it's something I figured would go right on eBay. This Yamaha is a lower end bpc stereo only receiver. It has a special Loudness knob that slowly decreases the amount of bass and treble boost as the volume increases. So you set the master volume up to the max listening volume you want and then you use the Loudness knob as the volume knob. It worked very well and I thought, "Hey this sounds great, very much like the KR-6600 actually but just a bit more detailed and less colored (not that the KR-6600 adds much color). Then I pushed the Pure Direct button on the Yamaha. This completely bypasses the tone controls and sends the source signal straight to the amp. Wow! What a nice sound. Balanced, detailed, and very, very musical and pleasantly easy to listen to if the source is good. If not it exposes it. For the harder rocking stuff the Loudness knob works great and for the jazz.acoustic stuff the Pure Direct sounds wonderful. Why don't more manufacturer's put in a bypass switch like this?

So, are my ears broken to have chosen the lowly Yamaha over the classic Marantz and Kenwood and the much higher end Rotel?

I'm leaving the Yamaha hooked up to the Smaller Advents for a while. I put my Sonic Impact in the tape loop to drive the Advent 3's. Having both sets of Advent's running stacked gives a nice richness to the sound.

The Rotel setup might be great for a home theater but as a music system I think it came up really short. It's going to get eBay'd.

The little Marantz 2220b is also going on eBay. I like the sound but I really prefer more detail than the Marantz gives.

Either the Kenwood or the Yamaha is also going on eBay (I only have room for one). I'm not sure which it's going to be but right now the Kenwood is sitting closest to the door.
 
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I will say this, there is such a thing as synergy. Certain components just sound good together, but that doesn't mean that the others are without merit. They just don't match up well with your components. If you are just starting out inro vintage audio. I suggest you hold off on selling anything untill you have heard it with its own synergisic pieces..
 
I've been using a Yamaha receiver for a while now and it's hard to fault. Plus I'm spoiled by the remote.

REMOTE!

BWAHAHAHAHA
 
Your story tells it all......system matching and the little wonders that happen unexpectedly....exchanging gear.

See othere topic out here TOTL always the best?.... clearly NOT.
 
There is one HUGE potential variable here which I don't think has been addressed: have these units been checked over, recapped and generally brought back to "as new" spec? It doesn't sound like they have...

If not, perhaps all you are comparing is the relative degrees of deterioration in the discrete components inside your components! Marantz electrolytics in the 22XX models, in particular, tend to be bad by now. They used caps that sounded very good when new, but haven't held up well.

That said, YES, there is something to be said for synergy, and it is possible your Yamaha really does sound better. Some of the less-often-praised labels like Yamaha made some wonderful-sounding gear. Lest we forget, these are the people who have been making pianos and other musical instruments for years, and who made the M2 and B2 amps and the extraordinary NS-1000 family of speakers; they DO (or at least did... :D ) know something about music and sound reproduction!

Add to that the fact that we each have our own listening preferences, and it isn't too surprising that you'd find the Yamaha to sound the best.

BUT I would still say you need to recap and check all of those units, before any pronouncement of which design/model actually sounds best has any validity. All you are saying right now is that this is true of YOUR INDIVIDUAL EXAMPLES of these models, in the condition they are currently in.
 
I really like the Yamaha stuff, vintage especially, but sometimes in this hobby 1+1=5
The right combo just works, that is the grail we seek IMHO
Enjoy!
Jim
 
Occam's razor at work here, what is the the only variable and easiest solution to note difference between the different gear? The bypassing of the tone controls. That gets my vote.
 
Arkay said:
All you are saying right now is that this is true of YOUR INDIVIDUAL EXAMPLES of these models, in the condition they are currently in.
Click to expand...

That's all I'm saying. They have not been recapped.

I was just surprised that I liked the cheapest one of the bunch!

I'm sure if I ran the test again with higher efficiency speakers the outcome would be different. The Advents really need some power to bring out their full sound.
 
I have a new rx-v663 and a cr-2040 in the same room. I have noticed the quality of the sound, especially with the pure direct button, of the 663 when I pair it with the right combination of speakers, right now that consists of front mains being a pair of allen organ company speakers, talk about synery. I tried it with my hpm-100's and it was not good. Conversely the allen's don't match well with the 2040.

That synergy thing is all that and a side of bacon.
 
bsujeep said:
I have a new rx-v663 and a cr-2040 in the same room. I have noticed the quality of the sound, especially with the pure direct button, of the 663 when I pair it with the right combination of speakers, right now that consists of front mains being a pair of allen organ company speakers, talk about synery. I tried it with my hpm-100's and it was not good. Conversely the allen's don't match well with the 2040.

That synergy thing is all that and a side of bacon.
Click to expand...

Thats what makes most tests done in magazines so unreliable......
Every manufacturer of HIFI tries to make a good product.....sound is system dependent. (dont even talk about cables...to keep it simple )
 
I was at a high-end store around town that also has some vintage. I was looking at a Marantz 2325 and had them play it on a pair of nice bookshelf speakers. As a comparison I had them plug in a not-cheap Yamaha HT receiver, thinking the Marantz would embarrass it. It didn't. The Yamaha, with these speakers, and whatever was going on with the condition of the Marantz, sounded a whole lot better. But my HT Yamaha at home gets smoked all the time by my vintage collection (which is why its HT only)..so you never know. And that's why I love this hobby. I'm constantly surprised by things, and assumptions I have are constantly being challenged. (which is also why I no longer pay any attention to people who say "well, I've read that this is a great piece of gear..." I have to hear it myself and make up my own mind.
 
The Smaller Advent is nominally 4 ohms and based on my experiences older Marantz gear is not the happiest with 4 ohm loads. I agree there is synergy when a a system is greater than the sum of its parts but in this case besides synergy as to the Marantz, the amp may not be as stable as it should be into 4 ohms.
 
You will find a large following here of Yamaha fans. They have a similer sound through out their product line. If you like what you hear then run with it and move up if you feel the need.
 
Ignoring all of the potential variables in terms of the physical condition of your recently acquired gear, your observations don't surprise me at all. My lowly little Kenwood KA-3500 integrated amp sounds, to me, much better than my Hafler DH-200 amp and DH-101 pre-amp combination at mild volumes (all of this gear is in similar good working order). The Hafler gear is better at higher volumes due to the power difference, but at my typical listening levels, I prefer the little Kenwood. I admit that I was a bit put off by this when I was willing to acknowledge it (after all, I had spent a fair bit of $ on the Hafler gear, not to mention the assembly time), but it is what it is.
 
I've been saying this about MCS (and other) gear for a couple of years now. Some folks get into badge envy. It doesn't matter if it's Mark Levinson or Sears - if it works well.

It is what the ears (and speakers) like. Speakers are not simple pure resistive loads. They are inductive over most of the range, but suffer from phase shifts due to crossover design/components, etc. They reflect minor signal(s) back down the line to the amp from field collapse and from acoustic feedback to the speaker cone causing it to induce a signal. Then it's up to the final stage dampening to dissipate these signals.

Some amps do this better than others and, depending on the form the signal takes, may be able to handle the signal from one speaker better than another. Synergy comes, in part, from this match - or mismatch.

Yamaha builds Grand Pianos among other instruments. Think they can engineer and audio bit here and there? Although I don't have a Yamie gear in my pile now, I have had as recently as last year. Their loudness control is built for very quiet listening conditioning. As you turn it up, the room gets quieter, but the "fullness" increases. If normal levels are expected, use the straight through function. I also love the "Spatial Expander". That was my favorite knob on the plain R series :)
 
I have an RX-596. Its a very good receiver and sounds very good. Unfortunately with mine My son set it precariously on a bookshelf and the cat decided to nock it off the shelf!!!!!!

Your not crazy.

Steve
 
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