Fusion 8100 -vs- my old Marantz SR8200

[gordonsmith]

The holiday sale has me thinking... Do I *need* to swap out old gear? No. Might it be fun? Oh yeah...

I'm curious if any of you have opinions about the relative quality of my aging Marantz SR8200 and the Fusion 8100. This isn't for my main theater, it's for my family room (5.1).

Thoughts?

[TempTag]

Cannot speak to sound quality not owning your Marantz, but the 8100 will add modern codecs, HDMI, on screen display, overall lots of convenience in a small package that sounds quite good. My question would be what sort of video equipment do you have now? My read of the stats on your Marantz shows no HDMI connections and the 8100 has ONLY HDMI for video which might force you to replace other equipment as well.

[gordonsmith]

I have a strange setup in there currently given random source swaps over the years. Right now, all gear is HDMI and connects to the TV. The TV outputs audio to the receiver.

It might be nice to change this to a more traditional setup again.

[gordonsmith]

Specifically, that room has (for sources):

Xbox One

Direct TV DVR

ReQuest Media Player

and a Sony BluRay that I don't use anymore - I just play those through the Xbox One.

[TempTag]

My two cents:

One the plus side: The 8100 is basically the same as your UMC-200 so it will be very familiar.
Being able to use the better quality codecs on your Blu-ray discs (Xbox one games use these as well?) so there's a potential SQ boost. As mentioned earlier on conveinience side, one cable to the TV, on-screen GUI for setting AV and general operation, with possibly better usability as a result.  Even without the remote the 8100 spin-to-select-then-press method of choosing a source on the receiver is very quick and intuitive - and is something the UMC-200 does NOT have.

Minus or push: Will it sound better? Hard to know.  Do you like the sound of the UMC-200?  Also, like the 200, the 8100 has only 4 HDMI inputs (my personal biggest compliant) and no 4K option so you will have 2 units with limited future expansion capability. The auto room EQ is very hit and miss - basically it is the same as the UMC-200. I've both liked and hated the output. Right now I prefer to set the unit manually - REW (if you have PC/mic/time) is preferred I think over auto-EQ for either unit.

I use an 8100 today as a 7.1 (6&7 being Dolby Z height channels as all front speakers are in an AV cabinet) system in a small room and am very happy with SQ, power and usability. I previously used the 8100 with no problem in a much larger room.  At current prices I would buy an 8100 over the UMC-200 - why not take the lower price and free power?

[derek87]

i can sort of speak to a similar experience although my hand was forced...

i had a Marantz SR7200 (bought in 2001) which died recently (stopped decoding or recognizing digital audio sources via optical and coax but did fine with the 7.1 analog inputs from my Oppo Blu Ray). in it's stead, i bought a UMC-200 and UPA-500. i know what i bought is not the 8100, but functionally, it is similar. i am pleased with the upgrade. i still maintain a few separate HDMI connections to my TV (for calibration purposes) but i like having all the codecs in the AV processor.

that being said, if you are content with the sound of your Marantz and it is sufficient, it might be worth waiting until the next generation comes out that supports 4k displays fully. then again, who knows when that would be.

for me (not your situation), the move from the Marantz (again, mine was necessary) gave me better amplification (i never played the SR7200 loud, but i didn't have enough headroom in hindsight), and now, i can more easily patch in my 2 channel amp from my high end stereo rig as the front channels of my home theater (it was actually possible with the Marantz preamp outs, but i got weird feedback ground loop issues and i was never satisfied with how it worked/sounded.)