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Marantz SR5200
Dolby Pro Logic II AV surround sound receiver
Recommended retail price: $1399 (inc.GST)
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Reviewer: Richard Morgan
The Marantz SR5200 is a digital surround receiver engineered from the ground up to create outstanding performance. The design is top rate and the finish of this receiver is absolutely wonderful. Cosmetically it's pure Marantz is has classic (even sightly retro) styling.
It's one of the new breed of AV receivers for 2002 that incorporated the new(ish) Dolby pro Logic II processing system in addition to the Dolby Digital, DTS and compatibility with extended performance surround processing modes. Marantz has made surround sound format detection and switching automatic to make playing DVDs dead easy, but there's potential to manually adjust these types of things.
The unit produces 135 watts into six channels all driven simultaneously, under EIAJ (6 ohm) ratings. Under RMS, 8 ohm conditions it will be a rated 90 watts per channel. There's plenty of power here to handle most situations, but more importantly the internal systems that create that power are solid, high quality and reliable, which means the receiver will produce sound that's refined and competent under a variety of operating conditions.
Marantz has supplied a 6.1 channel input for hooking up an external digital decoder, and a 6.1 channel pre-out for connecting high-output mono amplifiers to the unit to drive each sound channel independently. This means the 5200 can expand as system, needs dictate and is well guarded against obsolescence (future proofed).
It seems almost an afterthought that the unit has a good quality tuner (radio) included. It handles 30 presets across FM/MW/LW bands and with the RDS facility lets you tune to a station by frequency, station name or programme type. It helps that even in fringe reception conditions it pulls in FM radio cleanly and strongly.
Installation is an absolute breeze with all rear panel connectors being clearly labelled and more logically laid out than many of its competitors. Speaker connectors are high quality binding posts on all six channels, which easily accept all super cables save some beefy old QED multi-strand stuff I use sometimes.
There are inputs for up to seven sources, including DVD player and there's a choice of optical and coaxial digital inputs for best cable connections. S-Video features as the high quality video connection system.
Dolby Pro Logic II, is a welcome addition, literally breathing new life into older recordings and providing an interesting acoustic effect when listening to some music discs (CD and DVD). Dolby Digital 6.1 and DTS-ES compatibility enhances decoding capacity and offers another improvement to surround performance (remember you'll need extra speakers though).
The remote handset can control the entire AV system. It's pre-programmed with certain capacities and has the ability to learn new commands and functionality as the system grows. There are inputs for seven source components, including a DVD player, and there's a choice of optical and coaxial digital inputs to handle optimum cable connections and set-up within a home theatre system.
Overall the 5200 is a very solid performer. It feels like a quality product, is backed by some serious technology and experience in hi-fidelity component design and is laughably simple to operate. Sound character is honest and neutral (without being hard of brittle) and seems almost effortless and is right up there among the leaders in the class. Nothing to complain about here and much to praise (music performance excels).
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