Different price classes - Mark Levinson No.5805 costs roughly 3.5x what Marantz Model 30 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 | A | Mark Levinson No.5805 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. |
| Grip on hard loads | evenly matched | Both behave much the same into 4 ohms - output nearly doubles (250W and 200W). |
| Noise floor | A | Mark Levinson No.5805 is the quieter design on paper - 103dB against 88dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | A | Mark Levinson No.5805 has a DAC on board; the other needs an external one, which is another box, another power lead and another purchase. |
| Analogue inputs | B | Marantz Model 30 takes more analogue sources - 6 against 3. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Amplifier class | depends | Mark Levinson No.5805 is Class A/B and Marantz Model 30 is Class 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 Model 30 takes up about 17% less shelf area (2033cm² against 2454cm²), and it is 100mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | B | Marantz Model 30 costs less - $2,999 against $10,500 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | Marantz Model 30 is the cheaper watt - about $30 per watt against $84. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A Mark Levinson No.5805 B Marantz Model 30
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?
Mark Levinson No.5805 is ahead, but on only 1 of the measured areas, and it costs about 3.5x the price. That is a lot of money for a narrow margin - Marantz Model 30 is the sensible buy unless a specific feature above decides it for you. If you already own a DAC or a streamer, the built-in one is money you are paying twice for, and Marantz Model 30 becomes the more rational buy. Think about the whole system: the roughly $7,501 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.