Marantz AV20 & AMP20: A Reference-Level Duo for Ultimate Home Theater Performance
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Alright everyone, strap in. Marantz, the brand that has brought you some of the best audio gear on the market for over 70 years, just announced a game changer of a duo of products. The new Marantz AV 20 13.4 Channel Balanced AV Preamplifier and Marantz AMP 20 12 Channel Power Amplifier, a 13.4 channel AV Home theater processor, and a 12-channel home theater amp with up to 200 watts per channel.
Marantz History
If you aren’t familiar with Marantz, here’s a brief history. In the 1950’s an American musician, inventor, and engineer by the name of Saul Marantz devolved and sold his first mono-tube-pre-amp, the Audio Consolette. Like pushing a snowball down a mountain, Marantz would soon become a giant in the hi-fi industry in the 1970’s, and later joining forces with Denon in the early 2000’s. Now a household name in many audio enthusiasts' dwellings, they have a range of products for anyone looking for their first home stereo system, to someone building their second or third full blown home theater, and everything in between. The AV and AMP 20 are the latest in the long history of superb audio engineering.
All-In-One AV Receivers vs Home Theater Separates
Many people watching this video are familiar with the classic home theater receiver. This device is what I like to call an all-in-one device. It does about 100 things at once including HDMI switching, digital to analogue conversion, built in music streaming, audio pre amplification functions like analogue audio switching, volume control surround sound format processing, and ALSO acting as a 7-channel amplifier. It’s like a AV processor with a modest amount of amplification built in. Products like these are the cornerstone of many peoples first home theater, but there is a limit.
What if you want...more? More channels of processing? More A/V Inputs? MORE POWER FOR YOUR SPEAKERS? Well, that is where home theater “Separates” come in. We in the industry use the term separates as short hand for describing an AV or Stereo system comprised of multiple *separate* devices working in tandem. This is a great strategy to get increased performance by dedicating specific functions to specific devices.
I like to equate a single all-in-one home theater AVR to a Food Truck. The guy who drives the van, cooks the food, takes your order, and serves you. This isn’t a bad thing, because there are some absolute banger food trucks out there. Separates are more like a 5-star dining experience. The kitchen has dedicated personnel to cook the main course components, the soup, the pastries or deserts, and the front of house has dedicated staff to greet you at the front door, the waiter who serves and takes your orders, and a busser to clean up after you. It’s an elevated experience. That’s what it’s like to have separate processors and amplifiers for a home theater. It elevates a good experience to a great one.
Marantz AV 20 Reference 13.4 Home Theater Pre-Amplifier
The AV20 is the brains of the operation, it has to take in dozens of inputs at once, and direct where everything needs to go like a traffic cop at a 13-way intersection. It’s hard work, but the AV20 is like a home theater supercomputer. It is equipped with 13.4 channels of audio processing. Meaning it can tell up to 13 speakers and 4 subwoofers what to do at any given moment in time. It is able to process essentially any form of modern-day surround sound formats, like DTS:X, Imax Enhanced, Auro 3D, and of course, Dolby Atmos.
Room correction is the next big thing, and the AV 20 comes with Audyssey XT32 baked in—which is a good thing. That means you can take it out of the box, hook up the included calibration mic, and the onscreen menus will direct you on what to do and how to calibrate your surround sound system. But if you want to take it a step further, the AV20 is compatible with one of the best forms of room correction, Dirac Live Room Correction, and it’s companions; Dirac Bas Control & Dirac Active Room Treatment. Dirac is optional, and it requires a paid license to use, but in my experience has been one of the best ways to help correct for imperfect spaces. And let's face it, unless you build an addition on your house and tailor every detail exactly to an acoustical engineer’s specification, every room is imperfect and will benefit from some sort of room correction software.
On the back side of the AV 20 we see a whole host of analogue and digital audio inputs, for all of your music needs, and lots of outputs for both balanced and unbalanced connections to external amplifiers and subwoofers. We also see that beautiful copper chassis Marantz is famous for using on their higher end products.
The AV20 also has 7 8k/60hz or 4k/120hz HDMI inputs for all of your sources, and 3 HDMI outputs, 2 on zone 1 and 1 for zone 2. The main HDMI out also doubles as an eARC input, allowing you to pull uncompressed audio from your smart TV and control basic functions easily with your TV or Cable box remote like volume and power.
And of course, the AV20 is compatible with HEOS, the streaming application compatible with most Marantz and Denon home theater receivers, stereo amps, and smart speakers. A great way to control multiple zones of audio from one app on a phone or tablet.
Marantz AMP 20 Reference 12-Channel Amplifier
Changing gears, we have the AMP20, a 12 channel class D amplifier. Capable of 200/watts per channel @ 8 ohms, or by enabling the Bridged Mode, 2 channels of amplification can come together to output 400 watts! That is an astounding amount of power for a multi channel amp. The secret is by using Class D power, which is much more efficient than standard class A/B, and still has that classic warm and accurate Marantz signature sound. There is a lot of capability here, with different scenarios calling for some channels to be bridged together and others not.
The Front of the AMP20 doesn't have too much going on, a single port hole power meter that reflects the output of channel 1, and a button to toggle the LED for the meter. We also have a Button to control the level of output form the LED’s on the side of the face plate, and a power button. Of course, the aesthetics of the amp20 matches the current line up of Marantz home theater receivers, processors, and stereo pieces.
AMP20 Inputs & Outputs
Around the back of the unit we get a gorgeous view of the copper chassis, something Marantz is well known for. And all of our inputs and outputs. 12 channels, so 12 unbalanced and balanced inputs. At the top of each pair of amp channels, is a switch to toggle between the unbalanced RCA or balanced XLR audio input, so this unit should be compatible with pretty much every standard home theater processor or all in one home theater receiver.
I love the little guide on the left hand side of the chassis that tells you what each pin of the XLR connection is for, so if you are in the field and need to solder together an XLR cable in a pinch, you know exactly what to do.
Normal Output, BTL (or Bridged Output), & Bi-Amplification
On top of the flexibility of inputs, we also have flexibility on powering our speakers. I’d like to point your attention the second switch on each pair of amp channels. This is a 3 way switch that lets you toggle between Normal Output, BTL or Bridged Output, and Bi-Amplification. Let’s run through each of these scenarios.
Normal Output
Normal output is your standard configuration. Each amplification channel runs a single set of pair of wires out to a full range speaker. This is for up to 200 watts at 8 ohms for a single speaker.
BTL (Bridged Output)
“BTL” is for bridging the two amplification channels together. Let’s say you have a particularly inefficient set of speakers, and they really need that extra power, that's when you would engage this feature.
Wiring for this can be counter intuitive if you are new to this concept, but Marantz makes it easy. Normally you would connect your positive lead of your wire to the red terminal, and the negative lead to the white terminal. However, in bridge mode, you should pay attention to the BTL label on the left hand side of the rear panel. That spotted pattern is indicating along the top speaker terminals that we should be using exclusively these red binding posts for our positive and negative connections. Looking even closer, just above those terminals, we see either “BTL -” or “BTL +”. In this scenario we will run our positive lead to the right connection and the negative lead to the left connection.
Bi-Amplification
The last connection method is bi-amplification. This is for people with speakers, typically high performance bookshelf or floor standing speakers, that support this. This is to send the full range of 200 watts per channel into each half of your speaker. You’ll know you’re speaker supports this if you can see separate low frequency and high frequency inputs on the back of your speaker. Bowers & Wilkins comes to mind, as all of their current bookshelf, floor standing, and center channel speakers all support this feature.
If you enable the bi-amplification feature, only the left RCA or XLR input will be enabled for the pair of amplifiers.
No matter the situation, the AMP20 seems to be able to handle it. You can even stack AMP20’s together for 24, 36, or even more channels of power, depending on your needs. You could even use spare channels of amps to power speakers in other rooms of your house if you don't need all 12 for your theater. The possibilities are limitless.
Under The Hood
Both the AV 20 and AMP 20 have been developed with the very best componentry available to Marantz’s engineering team at the Shirakawa Audio Works, Japan. These are based on the designs of the AV10 and AMP10 that released a couple years ago now, and the goal was to bring their new design philosophy to a slightly lower price point. Both the AV20 and AMP20 are only planned to be released in the standard color way, but they fit alongside all the other new Marantz products. They look great either in your rack or on display.
If you are looking to upgrade your home theater or home entertainment system, I would highly recommend looking into this bundle. Or even mix and match these guys. I can see the AV20 controlling amplifiers from a host of other manufacturers, or the amp20 being added onto a Marantz cinema series receiver to add a little extra power to your system. Flexibility was a goal when developing these new models, and I would say Marantz delivered solidly on that front.
If you have any questions or comments, please leave a comment down below, give us a call, or send us an email!
And if you’re in the area, stop by one of our Pennsylvania showrooms for an in-person experience!
Marantz AV 20 Reference 13.4 Home Theater Pre-Amplifier
Marantz AMP 20 Reference 12-Channel Amplifier
