Marantz SR8200 Upgrade? [Wish List] (1 Viewer)

[Jeff Harlow]

Has anyone heard anything from Marantz about firmware upgrades for the 8200? Would like to see Circle surround 2 like they have on the new 7300 as well as some potential fixes for minor idiosyncrasies of the SR8200.

My personal wish list would include:
1) Fix delay in digital signal pickup
2) Ability to adjust channel levels without internal test tones (using AVIA, etc.)
3) Volume OSD over component input (not just menu)
4) Ability to have different channel level settings for each surround mode and input (like H/K)
5) Circle Surround 2

I'm not sure if all/any of these are addressable in firmware. Anyone else have insight into this or other recommendations?

Don't get me wrong, the 8200 is a fantastic product as it exists today, but we can always hope for improvement. They had to have put that RS232 port on for a reason, right?

 

[Yee-Ming]

may I second (and third, and fourth) that request for a fix of the slow digital pick-up. it's the one thing that bugs the hell out of me on my 8200; everything else I can live with.

 

[ChrisDixon]

I'm hoping for some upgrades as well, but I'm guessing that they will release updates very rarely (if ever). It seems to me that it is included primarily as a selling factor, so you feel good about the future. My dealer has been trying to look into this, but he said his Marantz rep has been vague about the whole thing. If we get something, it will probably *only* be a software upgrade like a new surround or matrix format.

That said, this unit sounds so good (even in comparison to my previous SR7000) that I'm willing to put up with the other quirks. The "slow" signal catch doesn't really affect my CD player, and I simply don't care about the first two seconds of a movie stuido bumper. For me (especially being 60/40 towards music), I'm much less concerned about options and features. Give me a good amp section, DD/DTS/PLII, a source direct mode, and plenty of wattage and I'm all set.

Chris

 

[Herman S]

Speaking of the slow digital signal catch... I have been experiencing some problems with my auto surround function. For the past couple weeks, I noticed that it would not pick up the digital audio signal when I watched some dvds. This was solved when I stopped play and then restarted it. Later I noticed that sometimes it would not pick up Dolby Digital audio signals from my directv receiver. It would eventually pick up after I switched the channel and then switched back.

I chalked these two problems with the inherently slow digital audio pick up, however, tonight it just stopped picking up any signal. The display just showed "no audio." I had to reset the receiver by simultaneously pressing the select and aux 1 buttons. This appeared to have solved the problem.

I was wondering if anybody else had to go through this problem? Or have any thoughts. Thanks