This is an excellent looking and SOUNDING cd player, I have been using it for 3 years and have been very happy with it.
When even comparing to more expensive models it sounds even better.
The highs are open and clearly defined, midrange lush and bass is full and well controled. Best of all sound is so musical.
The player looks are great, never problems reading the discs, you can turn off the display and even play mp3 discs. If you like, you can even change the speed of disk rotation, so music sounds faster or slower, depending how you like it.
Top class. High quality product. Especially if you can find it on the second hand market at good prices.

Midrange and treble smoothness. Sturdy build. Head phone output is good but only up till 11oclock postion.

It does not fit my musical taste, as i listen to more rock, blues and R & B. The player tends to lose out on pace and energy. I guess this player does not favour my preference in music

Build
The physical build of this player is quite solid and firm, sturdy. The CD tray is fast, a bit too fast for my liking when inserting and ejecting CDs.

Sound
Warm in the midrange. The player is sweet and delicate on vocals. Acoustic instruments are defined well. Classical, instrumentals, vocals will shine with this CD player. However, in complex musical passages, this CD does lose some focus.
Not heavy in the bass, there is bass but lacks the dynamics or punch in the low region. Perhaps this CD player is not for POP, rap or rock lovers.
Treble is not bright and not grainy. I did not notice any shrill or sibilance on female vocals here . Hi-hats on percussion instruments were defined well.

Musicality
This CD player is more musical than analytical. With an analog feel to the CD being played, you would enjoy your records better. Level of detail picked up from the player is good, not dry not clinical.

Pace
This is the part where the CD player suffers the most. It lacks the dynamics in term of pace and vibrancy. It feels that the player is more laidback than upfront. Think candle light dinner instead of a night out at the disco. There is a slow feel to music. Maybe this the marantz sound anyway since Im quite new with this hifi thingy.

plays all disc formats, sound, quality.

No weaknesses for the price.

Hi all. I bought this player in january and it forms the heart of my stereo setup. Earlier i was using the Rotel RC-02 but had problems in reading all my CDs. I was not happy as i had to use my Pioneer DVD player to play the CDs the Rotel would not read. I went to the store n the guy recommended to try marantz as it plays all the CDs including MP3s. I brought few my CDs to check it was true and bravo! it was all smiles on my face. then i wntd to check if it sounded better than the Rotel. so i immediately did a comparision in my home. I must say the marantz sound is a real hifi and music is music. the quality as compared to rotel looks much better and most importantly it plays all my dics.

I really recommend this player to anyone as there are lot of audio formats in the market and this is the only audiophile player that plays them.

Similar Products Used:

Rotel RC-02

very crsip and clear sound. good quality

remote is crappy. no standby

I am using this player for almost 3 years and i am very satisfied and happy. I saw this player still being reviewd so i thought i would write my own review today. I highly recommend this player to anyone who gets it. I think marantz make small number of this player now. You will have to chek. I use this for my stero setup with Kef iQ7 speakers now. I use the old NAD C320BEE as Kef sound good with it. My system sounds very nice.

Similar Products Used:

Morduant short, Pioneer DVD player, Marantz PM7200

very clear and crisp sound. good quality player

remote is crappy. no standby option.

Nothing much to wirte on this nice player. I am using this player for my stero setup from the last 3 years and its sounds very good. I am very satisfied and happy with it. I was browsing through the latest reviews here when i saw people still reviewing this not in production model of marantz. I then thought to write my own. So i highly recomend this player if you can find any where. I think the company still makes limited number of them. i nvr chek.

Similar Products Used:

Morduant short, Marantz PM7200, Kef iQ7, NAD 320BEE. Pioneer DVD player.

Excellant soundstage, total detail n deep extended natural bass, audiophile feature rich player, excellant build quality, very durable and looks very very expensive, very precise transport, fast n quick in disc tracking.....plays any CD and with any amount of scratch on its surface...suberb timing and doesnot loose pace.....CD player and evn the discs never get warm or hot.....

None at any pricepoint....one is the no-standby option for some folks....i think this is again a plus point as u remove a noise making digital circuit here....u can leave it ON for days non-stop....nothing will happen to it!

I was looking forward to a lot of CD players in the market and settled for this almost an year old demo piece for the build & sound quality it showcased. Observing the pedegree of my setup, i drastically needed a mid-range player rather than those of the budgets offered by cambridge n rotel. I drew lot of the positive aspects that were coming in this box...

1. is the crystal DAC...CS4396. If you will see the Creek line of CD players, they all come with this DAC..and knowing the respect Creek has, i knew this was an excelllant DAC...better than the Wolfson Magic and Burr Browns. Only Marantz's latest high end SACD player comes with CS4397..so i knew the DAC was a good bet.
2. The build quality....when u r buying something like this u definitely expect it to sustain for a long time. I saw this CD player at my dealer for almost an year while i was scouting for a better cdp at my budget. There was no change in the cdp's performance...it could still read any dics in flat 3 seconds! it shows that the transport, the optics are all very precisely set.
3. Its the only player which is made in Japan along with Marantz's much expensive reference series. You can see the copper screws, the gold plated terminals, optical n coaxial outputs which also makes it the friendliest player today. No doubt, u can see the build quality, the weight of the player at almost 6 kgs and the platinum anodized facia...it indeed looks nothing less than a couple of grands worth.
4. .. the features it comes with. The best i see is the head phone! If u really wnt to hear that ur speakers or amp do not suck, use the headphone for picking up some notes in the song that u wnt to hear on ur fat tall speakers as well. Believe me it can shock a lot of people..i m happy though as mine are the B&Ws and they r no doubt the world's best. Period. Others like MP3, CD text, Non-finalized dics playability, pitch control and quick replay shows that its a serious audiophile player.
5. The grip on the CDs are so damn good that evn if u drop the player 3 inches before the ground, the CD either wont skip at all or evn if it does it will hardly be by 1-2 second.
6. Lastly but the most important...The Sound...let me tell u, all that harshness complaints that u hear is either because of an interconnect, speaker cable problem or ur amp itself....if u have a good 32 ohm headphone, try it out on the player directly n u'll hear no harshness...infact i fell in love with this player hearing the kind of detailing, life size soundstage, deep bass response and sweetness it produces with just that volume potentiometer. I m happy that my speakers arrived a couple of weeks late otherwise i wudnt have had the pleasure of knowing the capabilities of this player. Its very addictive...Something which rips n delivers so neutrally...u cant call it a harsh or a plum plum bass....bass is do damn good that u can do a one on one competition with Rotel or Cambridge's dual differential CDPs...this player simply sounds fantastic. I have heard the much much more expensive Musical Fidelity (seperate transport-DAC combo), next to it at the same dealer n i could not make out much of a difference, noticing that the MF was on a better platform of cables, pre-power amp combos and speakers. So, this player is a reassurance of a quality made audiophile grade mid range player that easily equlas MF, Arcam, Naim and Cyrus class of performance.
The sound is niether slow nor tend to skip with time....its accurate and very sophisticated. If u happen to hear the real class A high end equipment sound, then u will hear that this player sounds exactly the same.
I dont see any reason why people here are not satisfied...either they have never heard the good sound or they dont know what all cables and amps to use along with this guy....

with people complaining on the disc spinning sound...yes i do hear it at times when the disc is 75% completed....like it starts from song no. 7 on a 10 track 70 min disc....but more importantly i figured out that it happens with only few discs and not all of them...only dics which are not of good quality..quality in a sense the material is not distributed properly which makes the dics not centrifugally balanced...only such discs will create that sound..this is not distrubing for me though....infact u should be happy to know that the player transport is made very very precise...its a plus point....

Similar Products Used:

Marantz PM7200 KI series amp, B&W DM 603 S3, n a host of other leading brands...the list is never ending....in high end world they are all good n honest.....its ur taste n prefernce that rates them

Build quality Detailed display Choice of media Superb detail in sound

Harsh in the high frequencies

This is a pretty hard review for me to write. The Marantz plays any cd discs you can throw at it, has superb build quality and an incredible amount of detail at it's price point. The trade off is that it's very very harsh in the top frequencies, punishingly so for someone like me.

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Arcam DV88 Sony CDP-XB930E Q Moodlab Nos Dac Benchmark Dac1

Good overall, very smooth, plays all CDs very even handed. good top end, relaxing to listen to.

Somewhat slow. Bass definition could be better. Too wide a stereo image? Leaves you with a taste of a good sound but not "hands on" with individual instruments.Leaves you slightly unsatisfied.

I bought this Cd player about a year ago after thinking and looking long and hard about a new model. I was even considering a Primare D30.2 or NAD s500. Somehow I choose the Marantz as it seemed to have a pretty good 24bit crystal DAC and took a gamble as saving about a Grand! After using a Sony cdpxa20es (opa604 op amps)for several years, I first noticed this seemed somewhat smoother, but felt a little disappointed.The biggest failing with me is that somehow the music dosen't move along quite like it should (slow timing?)The sound is very relaxed and neutral which allows any CD you have to be played without gritting your teeth, but even with the best recordings, you are left not connecting fully up to the performance. The bass although powerful and quite well extended if somewhat ponderous, it never starts or stops quite quickly enough and always seems to sound "pum pum pum" rather than "dum dum dum" (say this aloud and you will get the difference!). With careful headphone listening the background is not quite as black as it should be, the instruments somehow seem to sit in fuzzy space and don't appear set solid within the acoustic. The display does alter this and the focus. Yes with carefull listening switching the display off tightens the image of each sound and the "fuzz" is reduced.Try it yourself, it really does, although I admit it is very slight.The sound stage is very wide, perhaps too wide, as the focus, as already said is not really spot on.Depth is very good too, but solo instruments remain not solid enough as mentioned before. For the money it really is a good player.It is very smooth, plays all music pretty well, quite analog sounding, and the top end is detailed with a sparkle. Somehow though it leaves me wanting a sound that involves me more and moves with better pace when required. I think the bass is the main culpritt and some lack of transparency on the O/P stage. I realise I am being to picky probably, especially when the Primare was on my list. You pay your money etc.etc.

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Various but no really High end stuff I have to admit.

- More analog. - Smooth - Open - Relax It is better than you can imagine at his price.

No Power Stand-by Mode.

This is a follow-up from my previous review. I have used the CDP for approx.100 hours. My existing system: Marantz CD7300 Player Monitor Silver Interconnect Primare I20 Int. Amp. QED Plus Bi-Wire. ProAc Studio 125 Speakers. After upgrading the CDP, the overall sound move to a new level. The previous grain and harssness shown by the CD4000 at high volume been smooth out by the CD7300 totally. The Primare + ProAc Speaker are considered quite neutral and it really reveal the weakest component in my previous set-up : the Source. This means that Primare is such a good amp that she make full use of the information getting from the source, good or bad. Bad Source give bad sound, it's just simple. I should said that now my existing source is at least closer to the Primare + ProAc status (of course the Primare D20 Player is the best match, but just too expensive, 3 times the price of Marantz CD7300. The sound (now at least): - More analog. - Smooth - Open - Relax

Similar Products Used:

Marantz CD4000 Primare D20

Sound -Warm. -Fine. -Very Musical. -Looks Good too (much better looking than the NAD5XX Player)

No Stand-by feature. Drawer looks cheap.

Recently, I've upgraded my whole hifi system due to the "Upgrade Bug biting". My Old Hifi: Marantz CD4000 Player QED Qunex 1 Interconnect Marantz PM4200 Amp QED Micro biwire Mordaunt-Short 902 Speakers. My New hifi system: Marantz CD7300 Player Monitor Silver Interconnect Primare I20 Amp Transparent Power Plus Power Cord QED Plus biwire ProAc Studio 125 Speakers Initially, i upgraded everything except the Marantz CD4000 Player. The New System sound much better than the old one, but something seem missing in the music reproduction. I went to the dealer and the sales advisor strongly recommended the Primare D20 Player to complete the system. Unfortunately, the price is over my budget (triple of the Marantz CD7300). So, i went for the compromise Marantz Cd7300 Player, the price is only 1/3 of the Primare D20. Surpricingly, the CD7300 doesn't loss mush to the Primare D20, so the pricing differences is justified. Sound: My system now sounding much much better. The CD7300 is couple levels better then the budget CD4000. Much Better. The sound is now Warmer, Finer, Rounder, Bigger, More Musical and Very analog sounding. Very Value for money. I Love it.

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NAD C521Bee Marantz CD4000 Primare D20