Neutrality, bottom end, cost, features

Slightly masked mids and highs, processor loop inactive in "source direct" mode

When my Denon PMA 700V died I decided to look for another integrated amp. Today there are VERY few on the market under $1000 and even fewer with a phono stage included. The Marantz PM 7000 had the features but how about the sound.

I have found after years of fooling around with various stereo components that system matching is critical, even for mid-fi. The Marantz mated extremely well with most brighter speakers that I tried i.e. PSB, some Pinnacle, some NHT. It was a little too laid back in the mids and highs, for my taste, with more neutral speakers like Paradigm and Tannoy.

Although I have Kef 103/3's, a fairly neutral speaker, I was able to bring the Marantz home to demo and the PM-7000 worked well with the Kefs, which are 4 ohm speakers, and a little harder to drive than average. The Marantz has plenty of power to drive the speakers and the low end is excellent. The high end, especially vocals were much better when I changed to a good bright interconnect - they do make a difference! Bass, soundstage and imaging beat the heck out of my old Denon.

Because of its low cost and excellent build quality the PM-7000 could be "tweaked" to significantly open up the sound and blow away most of its competitors for hundreds less. In short, the PM 7000 is a great value for the money and a great sounding piece with the right speakers.

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Yamaha, Denon, NAD

Good sound.I like it with quite normal bass and treble...
I'm happy to listen it.

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none

Power/great bass/excellent vocals

Missing a bit of mid here...that's all

Very strong vocals. Clean and tight bass. Loads of power to play with. However, the midrange can be improve and need to careful speaker matching

This is an update to my review below. It turns out there are small black buttons on the binding posts which can be pried out with a safety pin, thereby possibly allowing banana plugs to be used. As such, this eliminates one of my main complaints. However, I do have another one:

this amp seems unhappy when driven hard, engaging protection circuitry at what I believe to be premature times. I have my norh 4's hooked up, playing pink noise for break-in, and with a slightly warmed up amp, I can only keep the dial at half for two or three seconds before the amp simply shuts down due to overheating.

Granted, this is probably 100+ dB, but I still expected more out of the amp. All this said, the amp will go plenty loud for most normal situations, and I don't anticipate actually needing to turn the amp to the loudness I just described.

Still recommended, although if you have the money, take a look at the PM-17SA.

design

bass,too mach high,boomy

very bad at my taste, missing too mach in music, not transparent and many others.Can't play rock music.
system: cd marantz 6000 ose
NAD-370
B&W cdm7nt
transparent cables

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nad 370

Build, power, overall value in today's market.

Way "too busy" remote, need to simplify. Cheap speaker
binding posts.

Good sound, soundstage. Neutral- highs are there and bass is there when the source supplies it. Good sounding phono
stage for LP's. Seems like a quality amp and a good value.
Purchased from HiFi.com and all of my complaints are with them. I ordered it and I never received a confirmation so
I called them and they told me it was no longer available
which was not true. Then it shows up 3 weeks later via UPS!
I sent them an email telling them they did a poor job and never heard back from them. They didn't even double box it
like most everyone else does and this is a heavy unit. I guess they just don't care. But I am glad I kept it as it
is a good value and appears to be a fine integrated-- take
a look.

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Have been using high power receivers. Glad to be back with
an integrated.

powerful, neutral, good transparency

Apparently the rotel people are putting up phony reviews on this product. One even claiming hr paid $1000 for the pm7000. Retail is 500 bucks. I paid 350. The marantz amps offer much better accuracy and transparency than rotel.Good soundstaging as well. This site would be useful if only the children didn't play and the competitors would try being honest...

Almost everything for the price ! POWER ! , looks great ! built quality, plenty of inputs, remote is o.k., very neutral, superb bass and treble, high current

none for the price, except maybe the speaker terminals that could be a bit more qualityfull (I don't know if this is a word; my first language is french)

I'm a 16 year old boy from Laval, I bought this amp because when my yamaha broke (it was still on guarantee, and it took about 6 month to Yamaha to credit my a other one)I wanted something more "qualityfull".

Now that I'm owning my Pm7000 for about 10 months, I can say that I really enjoy this amp. It's able to drive my 12 inches home made speakers at very high levels without involving weak bass and treble like my yamaha rx-596 used to do.
For the money, it's kind of a gift from Marantz. It thruly blows away many amps that more expensive. I recommand this amp to anybody who have a low budjet and that are wanting a giant sound. Except for classic lovers. This amp is really better with rap, pop, rock... But not with classic and opera. In fact, it delivers a powerfull american sound.

My system:
Amplifier: Marantz Pm7000
Cd Player: Marantz Cc-38
Speakers: Home made (3 ways, 200watts rms,using a pv-1250 max pentivent woofer (www.maxspeakers.com) and a titanium dome tweeter

Remember, a review is just an opinion, when buying an amp, the thing to do is to ear yourself and compare it with others ! ! !

For more informations from professionnals and graet pictures, ge to :
http://www.tnt-audio.com/ampli/marantzpm7000_e.html

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yamaha Ax-596

Lots of power, reasonably neutral

Not that dynamic

I am using this with NAD 541 cd player an PMC TB 2s speakers using Monster cables and QED Qnex-2 interconnects. I use this setup in my bedroom only to listen to music. Unfortunately I am unable to use proper speaker stands for the TBS 2S, which I guess is spoiling the potetial of the speakers (during pre-purchase audition at the dealer they sounded at least 10 times their actual size. Anyway coming back to the amp, it sounds reasonably alright. Anyone wanting to buy a powreful amp for a resonable price can go for it.

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Pioneer A-400, Nad

the look

not worth the money in a million years

for this kind of money I got the impression I baught a "my first Sony". Look at Rotel for the best value buys I would like to say.

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rotel 921