I had been a huge fan of Marantz and its user for more than 10 years and I used to own 7 series before( SR7012, SR7015 etc) and I never had a chance to own the Flagship Series i.e. 8 series, And recently I had upgraded my home theater to PreAmp and Power-amps and I initially purchased AV7706 and I was not satisfied 100% and I felt it lacked the umphff feel and the sound staging lacked the scalability and power and it was very sounding average. Until Last week when I had planned to try this AV8805A and oh my god what a remarkable difference, The entire music now feels so powerful, satisfying and vast difference from AKM DAC’s used in 7706 and the architecture used in 8805A (ESS Sabre 32bit DAC’s) with 2 OP-AMPS for every 1 channel is so good and this HDAM architecture makes the sound feel so discrete providing the ultimate channel separation with crystal clear clarity. I highly recommend this PREAMP for all the Audiophile lovers and this is the only AMP within 6000 USD range and also having Balanced XLR inputs, and I also hooked up my newest Audio Streamer I purchased from ListenUp and the sound quality is Fantabulous , and mind blowing . I highly recommend to buy from Bestbuy one of the signature Hifi Dealers and shipment was neatly double boxed and safely delivered. 5/5 stars experience

The sound quality is quite good-when it works properly. The biggest letdown has been the updated and ,supposedly, upgraded HDMI board . This unit has struggled with HDMI handshake issues with the Apple TV 4K (previous generation); the new 2021 Apple TV 4K performs much better. It’s also had compatibility issues with the certain cable TV boxes whereby it had difficulty identifying the audio format changes(when changing a channel) and tentatively locked in on “Multi-Channel In” before switching. This caused a beep/chirping noise from the speakers. I eventually had to run both of these source devices through other components to get the 8805A to perform properly. I tried calling customer service to explain all of these issues. I gave up after being on hold for an hour and a half. This is very disappointing for a new unit-especially at this price point. I had an AV8801. I was hoping for a nice upgrade. Hopefully they can fix these HDMI compatibility issues with firmware updates. If they can’t, what could’ve been a fine AV pre-pro, will be a disappointment.

It’s an awesome preamplifier for your surround sound home theater, and it’s very solid built. I took off 1 star because even it’s a flagship for Marantz, but it does not have the actual paper owner manual. If you don’t have a computer, you are in trouble because it’s too hard to read in your smart phone for the electronic manual. Also the box is too cheap for the almost 5 thousand dollar flagship. I used to have Classe and Anthem, when you look at their box, you know it’s a highend flagship, but not for AV8805A.
other than that, it is easy to set up and follow the direction, and the sound calibration is fairly easy to setup.

Awesome feature set and sound quality. I bought the original 8805 two years ago from Magnolia. I just got back my upgraded 8805A. The unit connects to my Samsung Q90 perfectly. I use a 4k AppleTV, PS5, and Sony Blu Ray, and Plex Server. I have an extensive FLAC collection that I usually listen to in Direct or Pure Direct Mode. The DACs to a great job bringing out subtle sounds through my Classe’ 5300 and B&W 802Ds. Not sure what all the negative noise is about, but this is a great high end pre-amp. My previous was a Denon A1HDCI.