Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #3135 in Receiver or Amplifier
- Color: Black
- Brand: Marantz
- Model: NR1603
- Dimensions: 4.10" h x
17.30" w x
14.40" l,
19.80 pounds
- Display size: 1
Features
- Fully discrete power amplifiers for all 7 Channels (50 W x 7 Channel, 8ohm 20-20kHz 0.08%)
- 3D pass-through technology Enjoy 3D video entertainment with dynamic surround sound.
- 6 x HDMI in/1 x HDMI out Lets you connect your HDMI-equipped devices with a single cable. Enjoy high definition audio and video.
- Front Panel HDMI Input Provides an easy connection for quick hook-up and playback of your HDMI-equipped portable devices.
- Front Panel USB Input Direct digital play for your iPod, iPhone and USB drives.
Marantz NR1603 Slim Line AV Receiver
Product Description
Delivering crystal clear sound and network capability, the Marantz NR1603 7.1 Home Theater Receiver offers powerful performance in a Slim Line design. The receiver's comprehensive features include easy on-screen setup, an Ethernet port, six HDMI inputs including 1 on the front which can be used to connect mobile devices such as a camcorder or tablet, allowing you to immediately enjoy videos, photos and music and playback of the latest hi-definition audio formats. AirPlay allows you to stream music wirelessly from your iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad over your home network. The NR1603's advanced technology provides cutting-edge performance for all your movies and music.
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful.
By Jigsore
Let me start off this review by mentioning that I started with the Marantz nr-1402 receiver, and did not have a good experience with it. The nr-1402 has five HDMI inputs, but only three of them are assignable. You have to scroll through the inputs to access the last two. Sound was really good, but controls were quirky. Then I exchanged that unit for the nr-1403, which is the updated model for 2012. The 1403 is a great machine! Great sound, features that are intuitive, and some pretty solid construction. I used it for about a month before deciding the difference in price would be worth it to get 7.1 capability, networking, and most importantly, upscaling. All of my sources are HD, and all of them upscale, except for cable. The best I get from the native source is 1080i. Not a big deal, but the cable boxes, and TV's that are out there are not the greatest for scaling to 1080p. What was really surprising though, was that I am getting way more out of this receiver than I ever expected! Air Play was not important to me at all, but I find that I'm using it all the time. I thought networking would be great for firmware updates, etc. but I am actually using the internet radio feature, and streaming Pandora radio, and Sirius/XM more than I ever expected.My original mission was to get a receiver with a slimmer profile than most, with some enhanced features, that has good sound, and a decent amount of settings. This is the perfect balance in my opinion. The settings and setup are very user friendly, and the feature set is way more than I would expect for a unit in this price category. The construction is very solid, looks good, and easily fits in with my other components. There are six HDMI inputs and one output. Currently I have my cable box, XBOX 360, PS3, Oppo BDP-93, and Apple TV running through this, and everything looks and sounds fantastic! The upscaling feature is really solid, and although not a true 1080p source, it really helps sharpen any non-HD images. The Audessey setup is quick, easy, and actually does a decent job of getting you up and running in no time. Manually tweaking the settings was better for me, but by running Audessey first, it gave me settings to start with, and I just tweaked them from there.Like a dummy, when I saw that this model had networking I just assumed that it was wifi enabled. I never even considered that it would require a wired connection, and I'm a bit surprised that they didn't include that feature, considering the other features and price point. The problem for me is that my home theater sits in a recessed alcove that only has power, and no ethernet connectivity. The unit cannot use any kind of wifi adapter, even though the unit does have a USB port on the front panel. So my solution was to get a Netgear Powerline ethernet connector, and so far, so good. I have not encountered any connection problems, and updating the firmware on the Marantz was just as fast as a hard wired connection. Streaming audio sounds great, and the connection is fast.My logitech Harmony One remote recognized the device by model number immediately, and programmed with zero issues. The factory remote has basic functions on it, but most of the settings you will perform are in the on screen display.If I had to be critical of anything, it would be that the unit doesn't have wifi, and it would be nice if they made it with more watts. Don't get me wrong, it has plenty of power, and way more than I need for the space I use it in, but in the future I plan to move the system into a much larger space, and more power wouldn't necessarily hurt my feelings. If I said I would like 4k upscaling, Dolby Volume, etc. I would be asking for an awful lot in this price range, and with this slim design.This receiver is totally worth the money. The 1403 is really great too, but for the price difference you really get a lot for the extra money. I'm pretty confident that this will be a system that I'll be very happy with until the 4k stuff becomes somewhat mainstream, and then I'll be upgrading my display, receiver, media player, etc. anyway. Totally pleased with this purchase and definitely recommend the nr-1603.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
By PT Cruiser
This Marantz NR1603 A/V receiver makes movies and music sound better in our great room than I ever thought possible. We have a family room/kitchen/breakfast nook set up that is an acoustical nightmare. It's all one room, 45 feet long and 24 feet wide with a bump-out for the nook and 10 foot ceilings. It has a lot of windows on one side and a couple open doorways on the other. To make it an even more difficult situation, the floors are porcelain tile with only one area rug and no drapes on the windows (blinds) to absorb the sound. So you can see what a problem it is with sound waves bouncing all over the place. The unit this Marantz replaces was a Yamaha RX-V663BL 665 Watt 7.1-Channel Home Theater Receiver (OLD VERSION) that did a pretty good job when we still had carpeting in the family room, but since we replaced it with tile, it seems like we were always having problems hearing what was said when watching movies, even when the sound was turned up loud. After watching our first movie on this Marantz NR1603 we noticed right away that we could the dialog more clearly than with our old receiver at a normal volume.Hook up was easy. All connections were clearly labeled on the back of the receiver. If you haven't hooked one of these up in a while, the "Getting Started" directions tell you to plug the unit in and connect the HDMI to your TV. It shows where in the diagram. Then, just turn on your TV and the receiver and follow the on-screen set up instructions which are very simple. There is also a CD-ROM included which you can use in your PC that has more detailed and advanced instructions. I was hooking it up to a LG Cinema Screen 55LM7600 55-Inch Cinema 3D 1080p 240Hz LED-LCD HDTV with Smart TV and Six Pairs of 3D Glasses, Mirage Nanosat® Prestige 5 Home Theater Speaker System 4 Nanosat Prestige satellites and 1 Nano CC center speakerand Velodyne DEQ-10R 10-Inch Powered Subwoofer (Black), Panasonic DMP-BDT220 Integrated Wi-Fi 3D Blu-ray DVD Player, and a DircTV DVR . It didn't seem to "see" my DVR right away and I knew I had it hooked up correctly. I turned everything off and restarted, beginning with the receiver and, voila! it was recognized. I think it had something to do with the DVR "remembering" the handshake protocol of the old receiver or something like that. Anyway, once it "found a new hand to shake" it worked perfectly. Our old receiver didn't have 3D so I had to connect the 3D Blu-Ray player with a digital optical cable. This Marantz has 3D pass through so I could connect via HDMI. That made movies sound better.This receiver has the Audyssey MultEQ technology set up which makes it easy to automatically adjust for your particular room set up, even one as challenging as ours. There is a microphone included and getting our speakers and subwoofer calibrated took only about 10 minutes. The program does it all, you just move the mic around. MultEQ analyzed the reflections and distortions in our room and corrected the problems they created. It's possible to make further corrections manually, on your own, but I couldn't believe how good this system sounded just using the Audyssey. I honestly didn't think our system could ever sound that good. When I played part of a movie that had a thunderstorm going on, I almost had to turn when the thunder clapped behind me. Sounds distinctly moved around the room during movies. So this is what full theater surround sound was meant to sound like!This receiver has so many ways to connect things that I don't think we'll ever run out of ports. It has 6 HDMI ports, including one on the front, Ethernet, USB, two component video inputs and one output to support legacy video sources and displays. Once you connect your home router via Ethernet, you can take advantage of AirPlay to stream music wirelessly from your iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, or iTunes library on your computer. There is also a "Marantz Remote App" that lets you to operate the NR1603 using your iOS or Android device. You can listen to web radio, Pandora, and Sirius (if you're a Sirius subscriber) The receiver comes with a remote control (batteries included). If you choose to connect your iPhone or iTouch via a wired USB connection which is located on the front of the receiver, you can use the receiver's remote to operate your iTouch's playlists and music via an onscreen menu. This is would be really nice when having a party and don't want to have to continually go back to the device to change playlists or music or adjust the volume. And best of all, it charges your iPhone or iTouch while it plays. I had no idea my iTouch could sound this good without headphones! I had to use RCA connectors with the old receiver and the sound didn't compare to this.I was very impressed when I played an Audio-DVD, Love (CD + Audio DVD), that wouldn't play on my old receiver. I'm not sure if this receiver takes full advantage of the Audio-DVD since I'm not entirely clear on what it takes, but it was probably the best sound that I've heard from any DVD player and receiver. It was so crisp and clear and the music had such depth. Closing my eyes and listening to George Harrison sing "Something in the Way She Moves" is like hearing him singing in the same room.The only con I can think of is that it doesn't have Wifi. You have to do a wired connection through Ethernet. (If the receiver is too far from the router, you could probably use something like this: Actiontec PWR511K01 500 Mbps HomePlug HD Powerline Wall Plug Network Adapter Kit (2 Units).) My TV and Blu-Ray player both have Wifi, so it isn't such a big concern. I think that for all the features that you get at this price it's a great deal. And any receiver that can make a system sound this good in a room with such challenging acoustics as ours gets a big two thumbs up from me.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
By sjw
I'd been using the NR1403 for the last 6 months, which was a huge improvement over the Onkyo it replaced, so I was hoping the 1603 would be another huge step forward. The 1603 improves upon & adds quite a few options not available on the 1403, some are small improvements (better GUI, more customization options, updated face, etc.), and some big ones (7.1 vs 6.1, 7 HDMI vs 6, USB port, networking, built-in Pandora, SiriusXM, Spotify, Android app, etc.). I've only had it for a couple days, compared to the 6 months with the 1403, but so far, I haven't noticed any significant difference in A/V quality. The improvements & additions are great, though, but whether or not they're worth the additional 250 dollars really depends on how important those features are to you.Another noteworthy detail is the 3-year warranty, compared to the industry standard 2-year warranties from Denon, Yamaha, Onkyo, Sony, and others.The Android app is pretty good - ignore the ratings on Google Play. Apparently, some people who have higher-end Marantz receivers are angry because the app doesn't work with those models (nor is it advertised as such). For some reason, they think it's perfectly reasonable to give the app 1 star because it wasn't made to work with their equipment.
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