Marantz - PM7000N - Integrated Amplifier

Sounds great, has some good features, but it's WAY past its sell-by date. The interface is like stepping back in time. Cumbersome, counter-intuitive and generally painful to use, the Marantz PM7000N's interface was probably outdated when it was first released.Want to browse through the radio channels and pick a station? You'll need the manual.Want to find the random station you were listening to yesterday? Get your tarot cards out.Even setting it up is like pulling teeth. Wearing boxing gloves.Entering your wi-fi password is like sending a text message in 1999. I should have taken that as a sign and returned the Marantz PM7000N within 14 days. But I bought it during the post-covid chip shortage, it was in stock and I needed a new amp. And I'm an idiot.To ... MoreSounds great, has some good features, but it's WAY past its sell-by date. The interface is like stepping back in time. Cumbersome, counter-intuitive and generally painful to use, the Marantz PM7000N's interface was probably outdated when it was first released.Want to browse through the radio channels and pick a station? You'll need the manual.Want to find the random station you were listening to yesterday? Get your tarot cards out.Even setting it up is like pulling teeth. Wearing boxing gloves.Entering your wi-fi password is like sending a text message in 1999. I should have taken that as a sign and returned the Marantz PM7000N within 14 days. But I bought it during the post-covid chip shortage, it was in stock and I needed a new amp. And I'm an idiot.To be fair to Marantz, with time and practice, you could probably get your head round the controls. But it's so hard to fathom, the simple act of using the Marantz PM7000N is a painful reminder of all the poor life decisions you made leading up to your moment of purchase. Or maybe that's just me?Either way, it just sits in the corner of the lounge, silently mocking my hi-fi choices, or clicking in judgement when it turns on automatically with the television. (Which is, admittedly, a good feature.)I beseech you, don't be like me. Do your research and find something that reflects the fact it was designed in the post-smartphone era.

I compared this to a similarly priced Denon and replaced a 2 channel av receiver. Sound quality is superb.My speakers are very bass heavy (QA 3050s) so it's good to have bass and treble controls to notch the bass down. Saying that, the N7000 is the first amp I've experienced that makes most music sound good using the source direct function (bypass bass and treble controls). I appreciate that much more expensive amps tend to not have bass and treble controls anyway, but I haven't tried these.The N7000 dials feel much less plasticky than the nr1200 receiver it replaced. I slightly miss the ability to control the whole system from my phone. Only the Heos app can be used, not the marantz app.As usual, the RS staff at Middlesbrough were incredibly knowledgeable and ... MoreI compared this to a similarly priced Denon and replaced a 2 channel av receiver. Sound quality is superb.My speakers are very bass heavy (QA 3050s) so it's good to have bass and treble controls to notch the bass down. Saying that, the N7000 is the first amp I've experienced that makes most music sound good using the source direct function (bypass bass and treble controls). I appreciate that much more expensive amps tend to not have bass and treble controls anyway, but I haven't tried these.The N7000 dials feel much less plasticky than the nr1200 receiver it replaced. I slightly miss the ability to control the whole system from my phone. Only the Heos app can be used, not the marantz app.As usual, the RS staff at Middlesbrough were incredibly knowledgeable and helpful.

The sound is good but...1. The metal case is a miasma of parasitic voltages and currents and will light up a neon testing screwdriver which requires AC voltages in excess of 70V. When rubbing your finger on the case you can feel a buzz; this is a mild electrical shock! In fact, any metal part: speaker terminals, rca connectors etc. are contaminated. If I had taken my £2 tester to the shop and had seen this, I never would have bought this unit. Marantz's marketing material boasts electrical isolation of the digital section from the audio section. This is of little use when the power supply is spewing EMI. Toroidal transformer? These are used to minimise electrical noise by keeping all magnetic fields within the transformer. Doesn't seem to have worked. The noise ... MoreThe sound is good but...1. The metal case is a miasma of parasitic voltages and currents and will light up a neon testing screwdriver which requires AC voltages in excess of 70V. When rubbing your finger on the case you can feel a buzz; this is a mild electrical shock! In fact, any metal part: speaker terminals, rca connectors etc. are contaminated. If I had taken my £2 tester to the shop and had seen this, I never would have bought this unit. Marantz's marketing material boasts electrical isolation of the digital section from the audio section. This is of little use when the power supply is spewing EMI. Toroidal transformer? These are used to minimise electrical noise by keeping all magnetic fields within the transformer. Doesn't seem to have worked. The noise present on the metal case is typical of amps with switching power supplies or age-related insulation breakdown. What is happening here?2. The Tune-In Radio selection of radio stations is very poor. The only European countries listed with stations are Cyprus, Netherlands and United Kingdom. What about the 40 or so other European countries (and the rest of the world)? Yes, you can enter custom URLs, which I did for the stations I wanted in France and Switzerland but you need to be at least a brown-belt computer guru to pull this off. In addition, custom URLs saved to favourites are not accessible using the remote: you must use the HEOS app. These limitations are incomprehensible and only require Marantz a) upgrading their licence with Tune-In and b) making a software tweak.3. Bluetooth drops out frequently, about once per minute when I last tested this seriously using various sources in September 2022. Hopefully software updates will have resolved this issue.Fortunately, I won't have much need for Bluetooth as there are other connection options. So far, all the connections (Spotify, CD player, etc.) I've made are over Wifi or with optical cable so the parasites can't spread. USB music works well with the approximately 1200 albums I have on a USB stick. I haven't tried the NAS source input so I can't opine on that but I may use it in the future.In short, this feels more like a prototype than a finished product.