Different price classes - Yamaha A-S1200 costs roughly 2x what Marantz PM8006 does. Expect it to lead on paper; the question is whether you will hear the difference through the speakers you own.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | B | Yamaha A-S1200 has more power - 90W against 70W into 8 ohms. That is about 1.1dB, which is a small step in loudness but real headroom on peaks. |
| Grip on hard loads | B | Yamaha A-S1200 holds up better into a 4-ohm load: its output increases strongly to 150W, where the other increases modestly. That matters with demanding speakers far more than the 8-ohm figure does. |
| Noise floor | B | Yamaha A-S1200 is the quieter design on paper - 110dB against 106dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Analogue inputs | B | Yamaha A-S1200 takes more analogue sources - 6 against 5. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Shelf space | depends | Marantz PM8006 takes up about 17% less shelf area (1772cm² against 2123cm²), and it is 87mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | A | Marantz PM8006 costs less - $1,499 against $3,000 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | A | Marantz PM8006 is the cheaper watt - about $21 per watt against $33. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A Marantz PM8006 B Yamaha A-S1200
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?
The usual trade-off: Yamaha A-S1200 measures better, Marantz PM8006 costs about 50% less. With most speakers in most rooms that gap is smaller in practice than it looks here. If your speakers are a difficult load - 4 ohms nominal, big woofers, or a sensitivity in the low 80s - Yamaha A-S1200 is the safer partner, because how an amplifier behaves when the impedance drops matters more than its 8-ohm rating. Think about the whole system: the roughly $1,501 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.