AV Masterpiece

THE AV PROCESSOR is the less well-known sibling of the AV receiver. The main difference being that processors don't have built-in amplification.

- Mark Henninger

This is a reasonable approach because as a rule amplifiers last a rather long time, and don't come obsoleted by things like new immersive sound formats or updates to HDMI standards. Going the AV separate route also lets you tailor the amplification to the speaker system whereas AV receivers are forced to split the difference between whatever speakers are connected to it and hope for the best.

Typically, there's a significant difference between an AV receiver rated at 100 watts per Channel, and an AV processor that is connected to a home theater amplifier rated at 100 watts per Channel. That difference is the "all channels driven" specification and with an AV receiver you might very well end up with only 30-40 watts per channel when all are driven simultaneously. If you use an AV processor with an amp rated at 100 Watts for all channels driven, you'll get full power even with the toughest and most demanding audio content.

With the AV10, Marantz has created a new flagship. The review system consisted of the AV10 and AMP10 combo (the AMP10 is a 16-channel amplifier that is the perfect accompaniment to the AV10).

FEATURES

For an overview of the features offered by the AV10, I suggest heading over to the Marantz website. Like cellphones, there's so much IP inside an AV processor, it is more of a computing device than anything.

The AV10 supports an array of multichannel surround formats, including DTS HD Master, DTS:X, DTS:X Pro, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Atmos, Auro 3D, and IMAX Enhanced. It offers a maximum of 15.4 processing channels, offering a rich and immersive soundstage. The processor is equipped with Audyssey MultEQ XT32s with optional (paid) Dirac Live upgradability.