Marantz PM8005 and NA8005
By Eric Lim Chan Hin
AV Amp and Surround system along with heavy bass sub-woofer are always great for movies experiences. However, no known AV amp can deliver acceptable music experiences as far as I know.
Marantz PM8005 when paired with NA8005 delivers excellent unbiased music accurately. It might only has 70 watts on papers, but it can drive much bigger speakers than you can imagine effortlessly, resulting in excellent low freq smoothness, which is lacking among the PM600x series as well as many integrated amp with similar price range.. Dynamic is considered very good from low to high freq, except the highest pitch.
The combo perform remarkable impressive with most music titles with 90% of my collections, except some rare singers with higher pitch vocal, where PM6005 is better here. Due to its truthful natural sound, I might suggest pairing with brighter speakers for better experiences, unless you enjoy music as it is.
NA8005 can handle high definition music sound directly with very smooth and natural results as compare to the popular audio CD format. One more thing worth to mention is that NA8005 can take input via Optical without music quality degradation. This is a rare case as most DAC do not performance as good via optical digital link. If you think optical digital link is always bad, do give Marantz NA8005 and NA-11S1 and they shall changed your mind.
Overall verdict: Highly recommended. Due to truthful sound, brighter speakers are recommended.