Originally Posted By: jam
Originally Posted By: Ritz2

MultEQ XT32 is available today (and has been available since 2010) on a number of Onkyo/Integra and Denon products. I'm assuming that it's also available (or will be soon) on Marantz products since those come from the same company that manufactures Denon gear.


I read a post on AVSforum towards the end of the 2011 winter season where the poster was reporting that his Marantz dealer had been informed by Marantz that an AV8005 processor with MultEQ XT32 was coming out in the spring of 2011 to replace the very well reviewed but aging AV8003. Of course we all know what happened in March 2011; the earthquake may have changed some of those plans.

The newer Marantz model numbers now end on a "6" and a lot of folks are expecting an AV8006 to show up sometime soon. Considering that the lower end AV7005 has received excellent reviews, if an AV8006 MultEQ XT32 equipped processor with many more bells and whistles were to ship this year even at a $2500 price point (similar to the AV8003), it would definitely hurt Outlaw's sales of the 978.


If you visit Audyssey's web site there is a tool to search for products using MultEQ XT32. I didn't look at them all, but a number of them were in the $2-3K range. I suspect that number will creep downwards as it becomes available on more and more products. It basically seems to be the same as MultEQ XT with a higher resolution. It will be interesting to hear how it compares to the Emotiva Tact implementation. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that we might be seeing other AVR's with XT32 in the $1000-1500 range by the time the 978 ships. If that ends up being the case, the 978 will be up against much more full featured products at a price point that may be difficult for them to match with a low volume product like the 978. One thing that the 978 does have going for it is the inclusion of balanced pre-outs. It will be interesting to see how things shake out.

Best,
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