Marantz AMP 10 200 Watt x 16CH Amplifier Bench Test Results

Marantz AV 10 & Amp 10

The Marantz AMP 10 is a 200 watt/ch 16CH audio amplifierdesigned to be a companion to their new flagship AV 10 15.4CH 8K AV processor.Unlike the linear Class AB designs of their other models, namely their MM8077150 watt/ch 7CH ($2,500) or their 140 watt/ch 5CH MM7055 ($1,500), the Amp 10 utilizesa ICE Edge Class D topology. The Amp 10 utilizes aregulated SMPS power supply located on the front panel side of the product thatfeeds power to all power amplifier modules through brass bus bars attached tothe center chassis of the product. Brass helps to add rigidity, and is efficient in managing high current which is why it's also used by the AMP 10 speaker terminals and speaker relay.

The toroidal transformer feeds power notonly to analog HDAM circuits but also the power amplifier input buffercircuitries and signal selector IC. According to Marantz engineering, thishybrid approach helps isolate those critical circuits from noise influences bypower supply and helps preserve audio quality and performance of the product.

Unlike the other Marantz models previously mentioned, eachAmp 10 module is bridgeable to output 400 watts/ch (8 ohms). The advantage toClass D is a much higher efficiency (> 90% vs 60-70% of a typical linear ampunder full load). This means you can pack more channels into a single chassis whilegenerating less heat, which is bad for your AV rack and power bill. It alsomeans you will have more available power for multi-channel loading conditionsthan a typical traditional Class AB amplifier. Prior to the Amp 10, in order topower 16 channels using Marantz amplification, you’d have to purchase two 7CHMM8077 and one 2CH MM7025, which would cost about $1k less than the AV 10 butalso require 3 black boxes in your rack instead of one, all while generatingmore heat and delivering less available output power. If the Amp 10 checks outin our bench tests, it seems like a veritable bargain to any audiophile wishingto build a home theater with a high channel count.

Editorial Note About the Marantz Amp 10 Testing:

Becausethe Amp 10 is a very low noise and distortion Class D design, some of my distortion and noisemeasurements may NOT exactly match those of the manufacturer due to different measurement techniques. I did my best tobandwidth limit the test signals and have also redesigned my entire testfixture with the help of Bluejeanscable.com by replacing all of my test leadswith low resistance speaker cables and copper alligator clips at the test loadsand short balanced shielded XLR leads to the input. The measurements areconducted at the amplifier end to reduce noise pickup the power resistors areall very low inductance 8-ohm loads.

Formore information about how we measure power amplifiers, please see: Basic Amplifier Measurement Techniques

Marantz Amp 10 16CHAmplifier Top View

TheMarantz Amp 10 is a beautiful beast with the top cover removed. The amplifierblades are all neatly aligned at the back of the unit and high-quality brass bus barsare utilized to connect the amp modules to power. The toroidal transformer atthe front right of the unit powers the analog HDAM and control circuits whileeach channel pair is powered by a high efficiency regulated SMPS power supply.

MarantzAmp 10 Gain Structure

TheMarantz Amp 10 has 23dB of gain when using the XLR inputs and +6dB or 29dB forthe RCA inputs or when you bridge the amplifier. This is a standard practice in most consumerand pro audio. The preamp therefore usually has a +6dB boost via the balancedoutputs to compensate. The AV 10 is capable of 12Vrms output which is almost 6Xmore output then needed to drive the Amp 10 into clipping.

Note: If an end user is implementing RCA to RCA and XLR to XLR connections between their AV 10 and AMP 10 products, the net gain will be identical and thus the levels will be matched accordingly.

Marantz Amp 10 FrequencyResponse under Various Load Conditions

Imeasured the Marantz Amp 10 Frequency Response when driving 8- and 4-ohm loadconditions. The frequency response was identical under 20kHz and only slightlyaltered above. This is a true load invariant amplifier like we’ve seen fromsome of the newest well-engineered Class D amp designs. This means the amp willsound consistent regardless of the loudspeaker impedance that is presented.There's a slight rolloff of high frequencies of -0.46dB at 20kHz that is likelya result of the output filter but this should prove to be imperceptible. Channel-Channel frequency response variationacross seven of the channels that were tested was +-0.2dB to 80kHz, which isexcellent.

MarantzAmp 10 1 kHz FFT @ 2.83Vrms (1 watt, 8 ohms)

TheMarantz Amp 10 produced exceedingly good FFT distortion results. At 1 watt, the3rd harmonic was 113dB below the fundamental. The higher orderharmonics were still very low and clean at > 100dB below the fundamental. Theannoying 60Hz hum that plagues some amplifiers is completely absent here.

Marantz Amp 10 1 kHz FFT@ (200 watts, 8 ohms)

Atrated power (200 watts/ch, both channels driven, 8 ohms), the harmonics getpretty high compared to what I’ve measured from a PuriFi Class D module in theNAD M23. Backing the power off significantly reduced these nasties but even inthis case the 3rd order harmonic is still 75dB below the fundamentalwhich is about as good as I see in many linear amps driven to rated power.

Marantz Amp 10 FrequencyResponse @ Full Rated Power (400 watts, 4 ohms)

Iwanted to see how the Amp 10 handled continuous full bandwidth sweeps at highpower. With just 2CH driven, I was able to get their rated 200wpc x 2, 8 ohmsand 395wpc x 2, 4 ohms at 0.1% THD+N across the entire 20Hz to 20kHz bandwidth.This power dropped to 172wpc x 5 and 145wpc x 7 driving 8 ohm loads at the samedistortion levels. When I attempted to sweep at higher power levels, the Amp 10seemed to go into some sort of limiting (perhaps in the SMPS power supply) at low frequencies as can be seen inthe graph below.

Note: Marantz wasn't able to recreate the 70Hzdip I measured at full rated power with all channels drive, but their graphs did show some power drop below 200Hz in thistest condition so I can only imagine it really depends on the sweep durationthat can affect this result. This is not a likely scenario for real world usage since we don't listen to continuous tones with music or movie program material. This power sag didin't show up in ANY of my 1kHz power sweeps with seven channels driven as you will see later in thisreport.

These are impressive continuous power results, comfortably exceedingthe Marantz 70% 2CH power rating rule with even 7CH driven!

Marantz Amp 10 FrequencyResponse Overdriven (7CH, 8 Ohm)

MarantzAmp 10 1kHz PSweep (2CH) - 8 ohms

Marantz Amp 10 1kHz PSweep (7CH) - 8 ohms

TheMarantz Amp 10 is the first amplifier I’ve ever reviewed that delivers roughlythe same power with 1CH driven or 7CH driven. With traditional linear amps witha large centralized power supply, you would see significantly more power inthese tests with 1CH vs. 7CH driven, especially with dynamic power testing.That's not the case here and likely due to the very tight regulation of theSMPS power supplies in the Amp 10. Which approach is better? This is a topic I plan to cover in a separateeditorial and YouTube video so stay tuned…

Whetherthe Amp 10 was driving 1CH or 7CH, it produced 215wpc at 0.1% THD+N and 226wpcat 1% THD+N at 8 ohms. This exceeds the 200-watt power rating by Marantz. The measured96dB SINAD or .0015% THD+N all the way up to 100 watts/ch. That's a very gooddistortion figure. There was a distortion blip in one of the channels at 50watts which rose to .005% THD+N. I initially thought there was a bad channel ormy test fixture was whack, but I figured out this was caused by driving just1CH of the 2CH blade. This happened with any channel driven by itself, which Isuspect is causing a slight load imbalance. This is completely inaudible andonly mentioned for academic purposes. Incidentally, Marantzwas unable to replicate this in their measurements as they observed the samedistortion whether one or both channels were driven on any power blade.

MarantzAmp 10 1kHz PSweep (2CH) - 4 ohms

When driving 4-ohm loads, the Amp 10 produced428wpc at 0.1% THD+N and 457wpc at 1% THD+N with 2CH driven. I always loveseeing amps double down with halving load impedance while also exceeding theirpublished power specs like we see here. The 96dB SINAD or .0015% THD+N wasmaintained all the way up to 200 watts/ch.

Marantz Amp 10 1kHz PSweep (2CH) - 8 ohms - Bridged

When driving 8 ohm loads in bridgedconfiguration, the Amp 10 produced 519wpc at 0.1% THD+N and 550wpc at 1% THD+Nwith 2CH driven. Thisis impressive as the Amp 10 was delivering nearly all of the power availablefrom the supply bank for the blade.

Ialways love seeing amps double down with halving load impedance while alsoexceeding their published power specs like we see here. The 96dB SINAD or.0015% THD+N was maintained all the way up to 350 watts/ch. I definitelyrecommend bridging unused channels if you’re running speakers with a minimumimpedance of 6 ohms.

Marantz Amp 10 1kHz PSweep (2CH) - 4 ohms - Bridged

Caution: Marantzclearly states the Amp 10 should be used with 8-ohm nominal speakers when bridging,but I still couldn't resist testing it into a 4-ohm load to see what it couldproduce. Be warned that when bridging an amp in a Bridge Tied Loadconfiguration like this, each amplifier sees ½ the load impedance. Thus, eachof the two amplifiers in the Amp 10 are really driving a 2-ohm load, which is arisk of over current at full power if the amplifier cannot handle it. When driving 4-ohm loads in bridgedconfiguration, the Amp 10 produced 597wpc at 0.1% THD+N and 612wpc at 1% THD+Nwith 2CH driven. SINAD dropped a bit to 94dB or .002% THD+N. The Amp 10 didn'tlike this and shut down with a red flashing illumination from the porthole. To anyonebridging the Amp 10, I caution doing so if your speakers are 4-ohm rated. I amcurrently running my 4-ohm Perlisten S7t towers in bridged mode withoutincident but I’m not running out to tell you to do similar.

MarantzAmp 10 CEA 2006 Dynamic Power – 4 ohms

Asindicated earlier, the CEA 2006 Dynamic Power burst tests produced virtually identicalpower results to our 1kHz power sweep tests. This is the type of behavior youwill see from regulated power supplies. The give you more stable continuouspower but less dynamic power for transients compared to a non-regulatedcentralized power supply.

There are two ways of looking at the dynamic headroom situation:

Marantz Amp 10 PowerMeasurement Table

* Marantz does notrecommend bridging the Amp 10 when driving 4-ohm speakers. The amp could currentlimit and potentially shut down at max power, which is what happened in my maxpower sweep test. In practice, the Amp 10 has been driving my 4-ohm PerlistenS7ts in bridged mode without incident when testing a sustained loud (> 85dB)output in my large family room.

Marantz Amp 10 SNR @ 1Watt (a-wt)

Ialways measure amplifiers at 1 watt so that apples to apples comparisons can bemade between different products that have different maximum outputcapabilities. If you want to know theSNR at rated power, then you simply take the 1 watt rating and add 20* log (V*R)^1/2/ 2.83) where V = Vrms and R is the load. I measured anywhere from 91 to 95dBSNR @ 1 watt, which is a very good result so this amplifier should berelatively free from hiss.

Note: Marantz was able to achieve 98dB SNR on everychannel with this same test scenario. I’m uncertain why their measurements were about +6dBbetter than mine other than it's possible they were testing at 2 watts by using the unbalanced inputs with the same input drive I was using on the XLR inputs which would explain the difference.

Marantz Amp 10 CH-CHCrosstalk (1CH, Undriven) @ 100 watts

Thechannel-to-channel crosstalk of the Amp 10 was very good measuring at > 90dBat 1kHz and 70dB at 20kHz. I find anything > 60dB at 20kHz to be acceptableand the Amp 10 beats that by 10dB.

TheMarantz Amp 10 produced mostly excellent results on my test bench. I commendthe company for thinking outside the box and offering a high power, highchannel count, and high efficiency amplifier that is exactly the type ofproduct needed for today's Immersive Audio systems. The fact that you canbridge the unused channels to provide a shot of adrenaline to your front LCRchannels is a nice touch. My initial listening impressions have been favorablein such a configuration, which I plan on covering more in my formal review.Marantz's closest competitors in this space include the more costly 16CH StormAudio and Trinnov amplifiers. Storm Audio uses the Pascal Class D amplifiermodules with a very large 3,200-watt power supply and Trinnov uses a similar ICEEdge Class D but with 2 power supplies and inlets. Yes, those amplifiers havemore dynamic power on reserve, and more power capability especially in bridgedmode (Trinnov), but they will cost you significantly more than the Amp 10. TheMarantz Amp 10 should deliver ample clean, noise-free power for most upscale9.1.6 home theater speaker layouts. You certainly can't find a less expensive,better crafted, single box solution that will give you quality amplificationfor up to 16 channels. I hope this product is a success for Marantz so it inspiresthe brand to adopt Class D amplification in their AV receiver line.

Do you agree if this is the best value in a one box 16CH amplifier? Share your comments in the related forum thread below.

Unless otherwise indicated, this is a preview article for the featured product. A formal review may or may not follow in the future.

Gene manages this organization, establishes relations with manufacturers and keeps Audioholics a well oiled machine. His goal is to educate about home theater and develop more standards in the industry to eliminate consumer confusion clouded by industry snake oil.

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