Lindsey often says, when eventually discarding a much-loved but battered pair of shoes, 'They don't owe me a penny'. So it was that a few weeks ago we decided it was time to replace our AV receiver. It sits at the heart of our entertainment system, has had a lot of use during lockdown, and is starting to show its age. It helped to keep us sane during lockdown and it doesn't owe us a penny.
We're not great fans of the current trend for huge receivers which dominate the room they are placed in. Instead, we prefer a more understated look - which means a so-called slimline receiver suits us best. After looking around the market, the Marantz NR1711 was chosen.
Compared to many other models, its appearance is clean and simple and perfect for our entertainment system.
But looks aren't everything. The Marantz offers everything we were looking for, and quite a lot that we weren't. It handles 4K video up to 120 frames per second which is more than enough for now, as well as the latest sound standards such as Dolby Atmos.
Compared to a few years ago, setting up this type of receiver is easy. After plugging in all the speakers (7 plus a subwoofer) it's a simple matter of connecting short HDMI cables to the television, blu-ray player and attached PC and then plugging in our Amazon Fire Stick.
The sound produced is great. Watching some of our favourite scenes from films and television we were impressed with the sound. Our listening room is a good size and has a 17-foot ceiling but the sound never gets lost. We don't tend to listen to music on the Marantz that much because our KEF LSXs are in the same room but, when we do, it produces a perfectly good sound for music.
As this is 2021, there are also countless modern features which are either useful or not, depending on your view. These include connecting to Amazon Alexa so you can order up your entertainment by speaking rather than the huge chore of using a remote control. Probably more useful for me is the Bluetooth out feature which enables the Marantz to send sound to Bluetooth headphones for private listening. Other features will be tried out over the coming weeks.
During the past year we have watched more television than normal and although we're not 'square-eyes' it's good to have an entertainment system which reproduces the sound and video faithfully.
Despite the new acquisition, we're looking forward to watching a bit less television over the next year.