Replacing my good old 950 with SR5005!

I can't resist the price so I pulled the trigger. It will be arriving Wednesday. I'm hoping to hear some improvement watching Blu-Ray movies....

Cool - let us know how it works. Did you get it with the amps disabled, or just the stock receiver?

I got the stock receiver. I figured use my 755 with front, center, rear surround and the Marantz for front height speakers.

Well, my SR5005 should arrive today... I might get 2ea UPA-1 Emotiva amp once it becomes available again. I was thinking of the outlaw mono but the emotiva appeal to me more especially their pricing... What do you guys think of the Emotiva amp... I love my 955 don't get me wrong.....

If it were me I would stick with the 755 and the 5005 amps before I would spend $$$ on another amp. You have 12 cjannela of high quality amp so why not use it for awhile. That option gives the best bang for the buck right now and probably well into the future.

I agree with XenonMan. I think the 755 can stick around and take very good care of you for the major channels, and the internal amps on the Marantz are more than enough to drive front height channels.

Xenonman, I'm not sure what I was thinking but you are correct. I'm not sure what's got into me..

I do agree with you and Xenonman.. Thanks.. I need to kill this bug quickly before it gets me into any trouble..

It can be a dangerous temptation, can't it?

Well, I received the SR5005. Started the installation, out the Outlaw 950 and in the Marantz SR5005. Having all my cables labeled made the installation process easier. The Outlaw Guide was extremely helpful, I haven't even open the original user's manual that came with the Marantz yet.

Once the installation was done I grabbed the remote put the batteries in and pressed the on bottom..... Just like my 950 a slight thump was heard through the speakers ,annoying but liveable. After getting familiarized with the remote and controls, I did the initial set up per outlaw guide then dove in to do the Audyssey auto setup. It detected all my speakers as "Large". I did not like that, but left it as is and threw in the "Kick Ass" Bluray.. The Audio set to auto detect the format and it played the movie in DTS HD MA... My wife is taking a test in one of her internet classes so I can't really unleash the power, but I like what I saw and heard... Then I switched on my CD player and played the track that I am really familiar with "Here without you" by 3 Doors Down... Well, this is when I noticed the difference with the Marantz and the Outlaw 950... In short I favor the Outlaw 950 but this observation is having used to the Outlaw sound and the Marantz not tweaked yet to its Optimum performance. BTW, having the Marantz on for three hours got the top side of the case hot then I touched my 755 amp and it's just slightly warm....

There'll be more listening sessions this weekend and more tweaking. I have to send my wife to somekind of shopping spree (at Walmart) to keep her out of my way this weekend. Hahahahahaha....

Sounds like a good start. I look forward to hearing how the weekend turns out.

I did fiddle around more this morning with setup and kind of like the fact that you can watch any movie while the receiver is on standby. The Outlaw guide did state that a little more power is being use to control the hdmi switching. This is capability is great for the wife. She doesnt have to call me before she watches a movie she like.

I've done quite a bit of listening with my CDs and watching Bluray movies using the SR5005. The stereo imaging is not the same as the 950 it's replacing but when switched to NEO:Music format, it more than compensate for the imaging I was looking for (NEO6:Music format use the center channel). With the Marantz, I finally experienced the air that most REF 3 owners talk about. I kind of like that airy presence which is new to me. Movies in Bluray are fantastic!! The clarity of the picture is so much better than when the player is directly hooked up to the TV. I'm not sure why that happens. All I did is move the output from the Blueray Player (BP) to "BD" input of the SR5005 and of course the HDMI output to my TV. All I can say is the HDMI switching is AWESOME!! It's really very convenient for me to own this receiver. My BP, DirectTV and PS3 are hook up to their respective HDMI input and HDMI out to the TV. I can leave the SR5005 on standby and watch direct TV without turning the receiver on. That's PRICELESS!! My wife just like to watch regular TV.

I contemplated on returning this receiver and emailed Scott for an RMA... Scott took a while to send me the authorization due to the Hurricane power outage, that gave me more time to play around and come to conclusion to keep the Marantz. I like the airy sound, the HDMI switching, the not so perfect Audyssey and HD Audio. The two things I didn't like (the receiver gets hot and the stereo imaging) I can live with. I'll keep playing with the settings and hopefully someday without upgrading to AV7005 I'll figure out the right settings to get that stereo imaging that I seem to miss.

With the BP hooked directly to the TV it is doing all the decoding. If it was not outputting at full resolution it may have looked a little worse than if the SR5005 is upscaling to 1080P. You should check the settings on your BP and the SR5005 to make sure they are set for maximum your TV can handle.

I replaced my Polk RT55i surround speakers with RS750... Now I'm quite satisfied with my theatre setup. My SR5005 is not bad after all...