No single best amplifier here. What decides it is what you have to drive, what you need to plug in, and how much of the system you want in one box.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | B | JBL MA7100HP has more power - 125W against 100W into 8 ohms. That is about 1dB, which is a small step in loudness but real headroom on peaks. |
| Analogue inputs | A | Marantz Cinema 60 takes more analogue sources - 4 against 2. |
| Room to grow | A | Only Marantz Cinema 60 offers preamp outputs - which decides whether you can add a subwoofer or a power amplifier later without replacing the box. |
| Built-in sources | depends | Marantz Cinema 60 has a radio tuner built in. That is one less box if you still play discs or listen to radio, and dead weight if you do not. |
| Amplifier class | depends | Marantz Cinema 60 is AB and JBL MA7100HP is D. Class A/B runs warm and is the long-established mainstream choice; Class D runs cool and draws almost nothing at idle. Modern examples of both measure well - judge by the rest of the page. |
| Shelf space | depends | Marantz Cinema 60 takes up about 13% less shelf area (1591cm² against 1837cm²), and it is 64mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | B | JBL MA7100HP costs less - $1,320 against $1,800 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | JBL MA7100HP is the cheaper watt - about $11 per watt against $18. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A Marantz Cinema 60 B JBL MA7100HP
depends neither is better in the abstract - it turns on your room, your system or how you will use them. Only specs published for both amplifiers are judged; anything missing on either side is left out rather than guessed.
Which should you choose?
Neither runs away with it - they trade advantages. Let the "depends" rows and the speakers you already own settle it. Think about the whole system: the roughly $480 saved by taking the cheaper one would buy better speakers or a subwoofer, which does more for the sound than the difference between two competent amplifiers.
What a spec sheet cannot show: how either sounds with your speakers, how the controls feel day to day, and what the app is like to live with - which is where most all-in-one amplifiers are actually won or lost. Power figures are the manufacturers' own and are not measured to a common standard, so treat small differences as noise. If you can hear both, that will tell you more than any row above.