Aaron Parecki

First let me start with the good parts. I really wanted to like this product. The slim form factor is great, and it has more than enough ports for everything I need. Setup was easy, and everything worked great at first.

I was pleasantly surprised by the Spotify Connect feature. I hadn't used it on any device before. It's neat because the receiver streams the music directly from Spotify, you can still control it from your phone or computer, but if your phone or computer disconnect, the music keeps playing.

However, every 30-60 minutes, the network connection of the receiver would reset, and the music would be interrupted. The device would go into the "reconnecting" mode for 30 seconds or so while it established a network connection again, and then I would have to re-connect Spotify and tell it to play the song again. I tried both the wired and wireless connections of the receiver, tried DHCP and static IP addresses, but nothing would solve the issue. I checked for firmware updates but there were none available. I contacted Marantz support, but they also had no other suggestions.

Ultimately I ended up returning the device after about 20 days of the problem continuing. I am not certain whether this is a firmware issue, or a rogue problem with the specific refurbished device I had. At this point I am unwilling to risk it with another Marantz model and am going to try a Yamaha instead.