Price Paid:  $330.00 from accessories4less.com

Summary:
I love my SR-5200. I was actually looking at receivers almost twice this much, but got this because of all the reccomendations and price. This kicks the shlt out of my old JVC RX-6018 receiver. The first thing I noticed about this receiver was how warm the midrange was and how well rounded off the highs were. The bass is also much tighter than before. I was a little worried about the crossover frequency for the sub was fixed at 100 hz, well 100 hz is perfect for my sub. Just try an acoustic guitar song (Bang Bang by Dispatch), this put a huge smile on my face. The drums were so punchy, I thought the drummer was sitting right there. My old receiver only had Pro Logic. I didn't think I was missing much without having Pro-Logic 2, but damn, I love it. It adds a very nice ambient sound in the background in music. You don't hear the vocals as much as the beat or the instruments. Therefore it makes a great sound stage. I mean I could point to where the guitarist was playing and where the singer was singing. The two channel mode impressed me just as much. Again it has such a warm sound. The imageing and soundstage is great as well. The two channel mode naturally is more powerful because it only has two channels running at the same time. This also goes louder than the JVC, where the JVC was straining the Marantz was driving them very cleanly and easily. This also proves that you really shouldn't look at the power of receivers because the JVC was rated at 100 watts a channel and the Marantz was at 85 watts. The JVC clipped much earlier. This Marantz doesn't have DTS ES or DDEX. Oh well I don't think I'm missing out that much. Plus it has 6.1 matrix modes for DD and DTS. So it's all good. Plus it doesn't have DTS Neo-6 or Circle surround. That was a bummer cause I heard good things about Circle surround. But the sound quality of this amp makes up for it. I love the sound and it makes my day after a hard day of school. I mean I thought I was listening to different speakers, I thought there were new tweeters in them. They sounded kinda harsh before. Now I just gotta upgrade this woofers in these, Jensens. They really don't sound bad for $100 a pair after you put new tweeters in them ( I put in a Pyramid bullet tweeter-excellent product). Hey when your a broke teenager with no job you gotta resort to the cheap stuff. This is all I need until I get to college.

Strengths:
SOUND,Pre-outs to all channels, Pro Logic 2, 6.1 channel surround for dd and dts, 6 channel stereo is nice, Remote controls everything I have

Weaknesses:
speaker terminals are a pain in the ass to hook up without banana plugs. No Circle surround, ES or EX, remotse a little confusing

Price Paid:  $801.00 from A@B Sound

Summary:
This is for the 5300. Well it's been 5 months since I have purchased this machine, and I can tell you I am something of impressed. Using Paradigm Monitor 3 for mains, Polk CS 400i as center, and Polk r15s for surrounds, the Marantz has delivered. I had auditioned Kenwood,Yamaha, Harman/Kardon, Panasonic and others. I liked all of them a lot, but I finally settled on Marantz. The Kenwood 6050 was pretty impressive compared to last years Kenwoods, but it wasn't long before I decided that I wanted to try Yamaha, which, in this price range, are far more popular and higher quality, and my reasons for purchasing a new receiver had changed. So I checked out the Yamaha htr 5560. Awesome amp, tons of cool dsp modes, multi-channel stereo, component video switching, and a-b speaker switching.Its major problems in my book were its switching off into protection mode after a sudden loud sound in a movie, and its stereo mode wasn't too impressive. Harmon Kardon avr 125 was plenty powerful enough, easily driving even my 200 watt tower speakers at full volume, when I was watching Jurassic Park 3, and never shutting off into protection mode. It looks great. But it runs a little hot, and it didn't have Dts ES or DD Ex,or component video switching, and was thus too expensive for its features. The remote was not too intelligently made either. My old receiver was a problem-prone Harmon Kardon avr 500 that had a left surround channel that was faulty,and would make a "popping" noise during various movies.I had sent it in for repair and had it returned with the problems still there.That being said, it was a tank in terms of power output, and emitted prodigious amounts of heat.Movies like Resident Evil never sounded so good to me through the amp, with its 45 amps of high-current muscle and 70 cont. av true watts. However, I wanted something a little more reliable. I also tried out the Panasonic sahe70 just for fun. For its price though, it was pretty impressive, especially compared to Sony's entry-level stuff.It has nice clean bright sound, and quite the power for driving floor-standing speakers.However,it is leagues below H/K Yamaha, Marantz and other high-current receivers. I liked all the receivers for various reasons, but since I have tried the Marantz, I haven't looked back.It was less expensive than the Harmon Kardon avr 125, but it had DTS ES and DD ex. It sounds better, I think, especially in terms of channel separation. The H/K avr-125 had more presence in the surrounds, which I liked, but the Marantz had better bass response in most surround modes. Circle Surround 2 is awesome with its "trubass" settings, and makes my Paradigm Monitor 3 sound like they are subwoofers. In this mode, the Marantz sounds bassier than my H/K avr 500 ever was. Marantz amps always seem to have emphasis on the mid-range , and this receiver is no exception. It has plenty of power too( rated at 90 continuous watts in front left, right, and center from 20-20000 hz) and is high-current (maybe 20 to 30 amps). I don't know what its peak power is, but obviously over 100 watts per channel, but definitely not as powerful as my h/K avr 500. The remote is garbage. It is sluggish in operation and shabby in construction. Even H/K and Yamaha have better remotes than this. It upset me to such an extent when I first tried to use it with its tiny little buttons, that I almost threw it into the trash in a temper tantrum. Looks and feels like it will break if u drop it onto the floor from 2 feet up. I also don't like it because it won't work on my JVC vcr, or my Toshiba dvd player.

Strengths:
Nice build quality Good warm sound

Weaknesses:
Remote is a cheesy piece of garbage

Similar Products Used:
Panasonic Sony Kenwood Yamaha Pioneer Harmon Kardon

Price Paid:  $300.00 from Richer Sound's

Summary:
I love my Sr5300 it has more than enough power to drive my Mordaunt short's 908's 903's and 905. i was plesantly surprised with the performance in stereo and the multi ch blew me away. I work in a hifi home cinema store and the is deffinatly the best 6ch reciver for under £500. i would even say for the average listener it's prob as good as the sony 555 the arcam 200 and the jvc thx and the denon3802. i have listened to them all and i can't say ai notice the differece apart from the price.

Strengths:
Stereo. muti ch easy to set up look great in gold

Weaknesses:
the only niggle i have. is not so much the machine but more marantz. They always use the screw down binding posts without the screw having a hole to feed the cable. It's my opinion the banana plugs dont work aswell as bare cable unless you get them solderd. this cost's big £. hence the hole is the screw would be a good adition and make it that little bit easier to set up. It also give's you more confidence that the cable is going to stay where it is and not fall out during star wars.

Similar Products Used:
sony 555es denon 3802 Jvc THX Arcam diva 200 marantz 4300

Price Paid:  $999.00 from Audio Trends Wantirn

Summary:
Purchase price is Australian dollars, equivalent to about $450US. Paired with; Aaron ATS-4 mains (hand made in Australia) Aaron Sub-120 subwoofer (hand made in Australia but with a Chinese amp) Infinity Video 1 centre Old (12 years) real (ie handmade in England) Wharfedale bookshelfs for rears. This receiver was my initial choice after listening to the Yamaha VX6*, the NAD741, the Denon AVR1801 and the Marantz SR4200. However price was the barrier. I wound up with the NAD741, which was a real mistake (the dealer’s fault I thought I was buying the previous model to the NAD752 they had demonstrated not a lower model, and they were willing to accept that they had unintentionally mislead me) as it was cold and clinical, very clear but not pleasant listening. Some dealing on price saw the NAD swapped for the Marantz (which had dropped $400 during the week as Marantz introduced a runout special) and it was worth the effort. The sound is warm but clear, not artificial or forced (ie shrill) as with the Yamaha but not as clinical or cold as the NAD. (The Denon was OK, somewhere between the NAD and the Marantz). Each instrument can be heard in the orchestra but the blend is such that you do not feel like you are listening to a collection of individual instruments (the NAD was clearer but not as true to life, the Denon more muffled). For music its production range is excellent with the very high notes of the flute and the deep notes of the trombone equally clear and distinguishable yet well blended. The stereo is the best mode for straight music but the 6 channel stereo is very good for the “room filled with sound” effect. We mainly listen to classical music and the quality of the sound from CD’s is excellent, especially its PCM management when the CD is played through the DVD player and there is music that I have had and loved for years that has taken on a whole new life. Its home theatre production of the deep notes is awesome, especially in DTS mode, which it detects automatically (some of the others had to be told to switch to DTS). The little girl laughing at Mike scene in “Monsters Inc”, the pod race in Star Wars Episode 1 and the battle scenes in Gladiator are awesome. The surround is very clear as it moves from channel to channel, both front to rear and left to right and the stereo rears are fun (in one video you can hear the fire off screen behind the lady on the left, the crackling had never been heard before). I don’t have the extra rear channel but it is an advantage over the NAD and Denon, which don’t have it. I have had a Marantz SR-66 for 8 years which I have loved and which has given me no real trouble (although it did require a service on the dry solder joints and a re-set of the factory defaults on the surround sound a few weeks ago) but the lack of a sub-woofer input and no digital inputs and the lower power on the rears (80 front, 50 centre and 25 rears) meant that once a sub-woofer was added it was not up to the task. Given that the SR5200 should last at least as long as the SR-66, I guess that means by the time I go looking again I shall have been a happy Marantz user for 15 years – every manufacturer’s dream! BTW I love the Aarons – if you are an Aussie check them out ‘cos they sound better than any of the imports under $2000AUD. I’m saving up to replace the Infinity with the CC240 now and then the conversion of my system that started with the SR-66 (which replaced a 15 year Technics system) and the Aaron ATS4s (which replaced 15 year old Petersons, also made in Australia) will be complete.

Strengths:
Warmth and clarity of sound, neutral without being clinical. Surround sound modes (esp multi-channel stereo). Easy to use on-screen (via TV) setup menus.

Weaknesses:
Remote is fiddly to use, manual is poorly written and not very helpful when it comes to setting up the system. No Phono input. Digital coax on Video 3, wastes Video 1 & 2 (which are optical). No B-channel for extra speakers in another room.

Similar Products Used:
Marantz SR-66, NAD T741

Price Paid:  $550.00

Summary:
This is a review for the Marantz SR5300. The first one out of the box had white noise/static coming from the surround speakers when decoding 5.1 source material occasionally. I returned the unit and the dealer was happy to replace it immediately. The second unit works fine but the peak LED appears when playing through the CD analog input ( no mention of what the peak LED indicates in the manual ) at a medium volume. Does anyone else have this occurring ? The 2 channel stereo sound is very Marantz. Similar to the Onkyo sound. The unit is replacing a Yamaha RXV-995 which I don't particularly like the sound of. Dolby Digital and DTS decoding is excellent. Multi-channel stereo adds a new dimension to 2ch sources, less artificial than the Yamaha. The display unfortunately only shows the surround mode for 4 seconds before disappearing, it would have been nice to have the mode displayed constantly like Yams. The features/menus are not as configurable but I guess it means a less confusing product. Overall, this is a great product for the price, especially if 2 channel stereo is a high priority in addition to Dolby Digital. Used with: B&W P5 Toshiba DVD Mission 760i Marantz CD52 B&W ASW1000 B&W LCR60 S3

Strengths:
2 ch sound with music Price Multi-channel stereo

Weaknesses:
Model reliability Display needs more information Manual