Denon AV Receivers

They are closer than the debate suggests — same parent company, overlapping model ladders, and much of the same underlying platform.

Where Marantz genuinely differs is build: higher-tier components and heavier construction through the range. Some listeners describe Marantz as the more musical of the two, and there is something to that, but the difference is subtle and it is not what we would choose on. Feature sets differ in small ways in both directions, so it is worth comparing the specific two models you are deciding between rather than the brands.

In practice most of it comes down to preference — how they look, how they feel to use, and which one you would rather live with. We sell both and have no reason to push you either way, so tell us the room and the system and we will lay out where the two actually diverge.

See the Marantz range for the equivalent models.

We carry the whole lineup, so the answer is whichever one meets your requirements — not the most expensive one that fits the budget.

Two things decide it in almost every case: how many channels you need, and which features matter to you. Channel count follows the speaker layout you are building, including height channels, and it is worth counting the layout you want in three years rather than the one you are wiring this month. Features are where the ladder really separates — processing options, subwoofer outputs, and which room correction is available.

One of those features weighs more than the others for us: Dirac Live ART, which needs four independent subwoofer outputs and so is only available from the mid-tier models upward. Where the budget and the room justify it, that is the line we would try to get you above.

Both are room correction — they measure the room with a microphone and apply filters to compensate for what it does to the sound. Every Denon ships with Audyssey, and it is genuinely good.

Dirac Live is a separate, more capable system, licensed per unit and sold in tiers. Room Correction is the base: finer control over the correction target and a wider working range than Audyssey. Bass Control adds handling of multiple subwoofers as one system rather than individually. Active Room Treatment sits above both and goes further again, using the subwoofers together to actively cancel the room's own behavior — it is the tier we would recommend where the receiver and the budget allow, and the reason we steer people toward models with four independent subwoofer outputs.

On the models that support it, Dirac is the one we would recommend over Audyssey. We sell the licenses and provide the activation codes, so you do not need to work out which tier applies to your model or buy it separately. More on what each tier does on the Dirac Live page.

ART stands for Active Room Treatment, and it is the reason we push people toward the mid-tier receivers and above.

Ordinary room correction filters the signal before it reaches the speakers. ART instead uses every subwoofer in the room together, driving them so they actively cancel each other's problems — decay, phase, and the peaks and nulls that make one seat sound different from the next. It achieves in software a good part of what would otherwise need physical bass trapping — there is more on how the platform works, and what each Dirac tier includes, on the Dirac Live page.

Support is tied to hardware rather than to a model year: a receiver needs Dirac Live with Bass Control and four independent subwoofer outputs, which in the Denon range means the mid-tier models upward. Dirac keeps the current list on their own supported devices page, which is worth checking against the exact model you are considering.

It is not a substitute for good subwoofer placement — start with the subwoofer placement calculator — but it does a great deal with what placement leaves behind.

Configuration and optimization are included with every installation. That means the signal chain set up properly, the speaker configuration entered correctly, and room correction actually run — on the best version the receiver supports, with sensible targets and settings rather than whatever the wizard defaults to.

That last part matters more than it sounds. Room correction run carelessly can leave a system sounding worse than no correction at all, and a surprising number of receivers in the wild have never had it run properly, or had it run once from a single microphone position years ago.

Full instrumented calibration — measured, iterative, done with reference equipment — is a separate service, priced by scope. It is worth it on a serious room and unnecessary on many systems, so we will tell you honestly which side of that line yours falls.

Channel count, room size, speaker load and budget all push the same way — big rooms, demanding speakers and high channel counts favor separates.

Be clear about the money first, though: separates are not a cheaper route. They are a higher tier of equipment altogether, and a processor on its own frequently costs more than a complete receiver before you have bought a single channel of amplification. Nobody moves to separates to save money.

What they do change is what a future upgrade costs you. New formats and features almost always land in the processing rather than the amplification, so with separates you replace the processor and keep the power amps — which do not go out of date. An amplifier that drove your speakers well ten years ago still drives them well. With a receiver, the same upgrade means replacing the amplifier stages along with everything else.

It is not a binary choice either. A hybrid works well more often than people expect: a receiver doing the processing, with some channels driven by an outboard amplifier through its pre-outs. Usually that is the front left and right, which work hardest and are most likely to be demanding speakers, or the height channels where a layout needs more channels than the receiver amplifies. It takes the heaviest load off the receiver, costs a fraction of full separates, and keeps the processing and features you chose the receiver for. It is also a sensible staging point — add the amplification now, and if you later move to a processor, the amplifier carries straight over.

So it comes down to the level you are building at and how you expect to own it. For most rooms a good receiver is the right answer and will be genuinely excellent. Where the speakers are difficult loads, the channel count is high, or you want the system to keep pace as formats move, separates earn their place — at a higher starting point, not a lower total.

Only if you are going to use them, but the count is worth thinking about before you buy rather than after.

Two numbers matter here and they are not the same. Amplified channels are what the receiver drives on its own. Processing channels are how many it can handle altogether, and on most models that figure is higher — the extra ones come out of the pre-outs, ready for an outboard amplifier. So a receiver's amplified count is not a hard ceiling on your layout, provided it has pre-outs for the channels you might add later. That is the hybrid route above, and it is a perfectly good one.

What is a hard ceiling is the processing count. Going beyond it means a different receiver, whatever amplification you bolt on. So the number to check against the layout you eventually want is the processing figure, not the wattage on the front of the box.

The other reason to look up the range is that channel count and features tend to move together — the models with more channels are also the ones with more subwoofer outputs and the better room correction options. Frequently people end up a tier higher for the features and find the extra channels useful later.