3 year warranty. Good sound. Pitch adjuster. Rec level

There are just as good tape decks with lower prices and more functions available.

£160, well for the price of it I am very happy although as far as tape decks go these days it is nothing special. If I'd have seen a good make (pioneer etc) I wouldn't be sat here with this now. Personnaly I couldnt find a tape deck below £200 and very little choice locally. I know they are still out there somewhere. If you have the time i would shop for something else cheaper and with more functions/options etc otherwise its a good enough player.

Good "interfunctionality" w/other Marantz components, has the 3 most commonly used Dolby features (B,C, Hx Pro), 3-yr warranty, has it''s own remote

No Dolby S, no MPX (?) filter for FM recording, Marantz fluctuating ownership status over the yrs has hurt their rep & raises quality-control issues. Deck B doesn''t respond to my SR4120 stereo receiver remote. for this price, should dual-record, have Dolby S & MPX (?) filter for FM recording.

Note--the price is before trade-in. I wanted to get back to stereo, but needed to trade in & wanted same-brand compatibility for remote interconnect purposes. The local dealer that accepts trades doesn''t have a lot of brands, & I chose Marantz. This deck has many more features than the Onkyo TA-RW244, but seems less solidly built. Like Onkyo, you don''t have much choice when picking a tape deck. I don''t know the model yr, I just used the one on the other review (back of owner''s manual says "99/04", but there is not a date of manufacture on back of deck). It has some nice synchro features for recording from a Marantz CD player that allow you to program your recording & not have to add up all the song lengths & figure out what set of songs go on which side, although you can do all that yourself if you want to. You can also do an automatic peak level search, so that you don''t have to adjust levels song-to-song. I also got a Marantz CC4000 CD changer, which I will review later. The sound, so far, is very good from both decks for either prerecorded or self-recorded tapes. The rewind on deck B (the record deck) is very loud, but it seems to work ok, & I don''t know if it''s a quirk or a real problem, but the 3-yr warranty is nice. Pitch control is only for Deck A. The remote is nice, small, uncluttered, performing basic functions on both decks. If you are buying an all-Marantz system, then this is what you want. But there''s nothing special about it. Pioneer, Sony, Technics, (& maybe a few other folks) still make multiple models of decks, so if you are big on tape decks, look to them if you don''t mind also getting the same brand of receiver & CD (or DVD) player. See strengths & weaknesses section for more comments.

Similar Products Used:

Onkyo, Sony

remote, good sound, dual deck, pitch control

none

I bought this to go along with my other Marantz components. I still listen to alot of tapes and found this deck to be easy to use and has grea sound. IT has remote which is good and the double deck is set to tape with all kinds of settings, from Dolby B,C to non-stop.