Integrated Amplifiers

‘The most powerful integrated amplifier we have ever made’, says Marantz... True, but only if you base this claim on Marantz’s own specifications. So, while the earlier flagship PM-10 [HFN Sep ’17] was rated at 200W/8ohm, in practice its bridged Ncore NC500 Class D amps (rated by Hypex at 700W/4ohm in single channel guise) offered sufficient volts to maintain 625-610W from 8 down to 4ohm loads (not indefinitely) and 710-605W from 8 to 4ohm under dynamic conditions. By contrast, the new Model 10’s more advanced, Purifi-based Class D stage is rated at 250W/8ohm but delivers 340W/8ohm with a near perfect doubling to 670W/4ohm. The dual-mono Class D amps, with individual switchmode PSUs, have no dynamic headroom so the transient output (10msec/<1% THD) is 335W, 675W and 1.31kW into 8, 4 and 2ohm loads, falling to 745W/1ohm – a maximum current of 27.3A [see Graph 1, below], beating the PM-10’s 13A.

These bespoke Purifi modules offer lower distortion, lower noise and even better response/load tolerance than the Ncore and Hypex UcD modules that preceded them [HFN Oct ’22]. This is reflected in the low 0.00025-0.0075% distortion at 10W/8ohm [pink trace, Graph 2], increasing to 0.00045-0.066% at 100W/8ohm [red trace; all re. 20Hz-20kHz]. The older PM-10 managed 0.0012-0.032% at 10W/8ohm. The Model 10’s 93dB A-wtd S/N ratio (re. 0dBW) also bests the PM-10 by 2dB while its response is now a flatter ±0.08dB from 20Hz-20kHz into all loads from 8ohm down to 1ohm – vastly superior to ‘old school’ Class D amplifiers. Finally, the Model 10 amplifier is dual mono, if not entirely symmetrical in layout [see inside pic, opposite], so stereo separation is a super-wide 110dB midband. PM