I haven't been too proud to beg in the past and at long last Marantz has thrown me a metaphorical penny - the SR8001. My prayers have been answered with a receiver offering two HDMI outputs.
Using a flatpanel TV for day-to-day viewing and a projector for those big nights in with movies, twin HDMI outputs has been on my wish list, right up there with Keira Knightley, for ages. No more pulling and plugging cables and that HDMI multiplexer I normally use can go on Ebay this week...
Well, almost. While Marantz's THX Select2-specified beasty does indeed boast two fully 1080p-compatible outputs, they cannot output simultaneously. Not really a major issue in my one-room setup, but a right pain if you want to run HDMI multiroom, as you have to set the HDMI output from one display to output to the other. Head - table - thump.
Single socket supplement
Still, this is at least a step in the right direction and, to be fair, my two-input and four-simultaneous output HDMI multiplexer cost nearly £400, which suggests that generating multiple outputs from a single HDMI source is still expensive. Moreover, one can't knock the SR8001 for its de-interlacing, analogue video conversion to HDMI, and more traditional multiroom features such as multiple component video outputs and IR repeaters.
But that is all just icing when you consider what the SR8001 is all about - 125W to all seven channels with a THX badge to underpin those credentials.
In reality, THX brings re-equalisation to tame bright soundtracks mastered for a large cinema, plus timbre-matching filters to compensate for small rear speakers and something called adaptive decorrelation. The blurb says this alters time and phase to expand the listening experience but I generally find a bottle of Rioja and a bag of Butterkist does that just as well.
Performance
If an amp was ever to sound like it looked, the SR8001 is it. Big, muscular, bold and well-controlled, this receiver simply laps up epic-scale movies with a well-oiled mix of power and precision. Bass is absolutely subterranean, driving big floor-standing speakers and a subwoofer with equal aplomb for the full flare-flapping low-frequency effect.
Stick on the beginning of Leon ( The Professional if you have the R1 disc) and the heartbeat before the opening shoot-out is beautifully intense and oppressive, getting your heart beating in rhythmic, terrifying synchronicity.
