Immaculate build quality and looks. Beautiful clean sound with excellent dynamics, mid-range and wonderful tight bass.

Needs running in for a minimum of 72 hours

I bought this player for $450 at a clearance house in England. List price is $1200. What a bargain! It has a superb gold finish and looks fantastic. A word of warning though. Straight out of the box the player sounds muddled and bright. It requires running in for a minmum of 3-4 full days. Once this is done it rewards with a wonderfully open and emotional soundstage. It easily outperforms the Roksan Caspian and Arcam CD72 in my opinion. My advice? Simple - buy one!

Similar Products Used:

Arcam CD72, Roksan Caspian

Good Looks, nice build, detailed sound. Not tiresome on the ear.

None

Let me just say this: I could not believe this CD Player costs only $700 in Korea! While I was shopping for a new CD player, I checked out the Arcam Alpha 8SE and the Rega Planet. They sounded pretty good, but they also costed about $850. But their build quality was below par, and the sound alone could not justify the price tag. Then I stumbled upon the Marantz CD-17 mkII. I was afraid to even ask how much it costs, it being so shiny and all, but to my surprise it was cheaper than the Arcam and the Rega Planet! And It sounded great, too.

Now that I have used it for about 4 months, I still can't believe this CD player is so cheap. It's so detailed, yet very smooth and easy on the ear. I never get tired of listening to CDs.

I Defintely recommend this CD player. If you own a mid-to-high end system, and you want a great sounding CD player that also looks shiny, this is definitely the CD player to buy. Especially if you live in the Far East like I do!

Similar Products Used:

Rega Planet, Arcam Alpha 8SE.

I've matched this unit with Monster Power HTS-3000 line conditioner, PM-17 integrated amp , KEF RDM two bookshelf monitors, Monster 950i interconnects and Monster M1.4 Bi-wire speaker cables. The CD-17 mk II is detailed and involving. Acoustic music has an especially analog-like realism. Vocals (midrange) are clear and strong. I find myself listening to old standards with what I can only describe as "new ears". I have heard comments to the effect: "is this a different version of this tune ?". What do you know ?, you can put together a nice system, sound unheard, for a moderate price.

very musical,natural and involving. stunning bass and excellent dynamics. excellent soundstaging and detail/innerdetail

what do you mean, weaknesses??

I own this player for about 5 months now and can not recommend it enough, but after a burn-in period of 500! hours it really come on song. the cd17mkII has 4 'mute-transistors', these must be removed! Some cd17mkII had Elna'for hifi' capacitors, my player use Elna 'silmic' throughout,I think this is much better,more musical. The player sounds beautyfully 'human' and 3-dimensional and very dynamic. Excellent soundstaging and detail/innerdetails. sounds much more analog than a arcam cd23 for example with much better and deeper bass. the marantz cd6000'KI' is also very good, but has less ease and more compression with orchestral climaxes. the cd17mkII is very musical and very strong in emotional involvement and ambiance, if it was possible,I give it 6 stars!

Similar Products Used:

arcam cd23- cyruss cd7- naim cd5- marantz cd6000'KI'- linn genki- rotel 991-

lovely,open midband,excellent dynamics and very musical. very deep and full bass and excellent soundstage depth/width

none

this is a beautyfull player after removing of the (nonmusical) mute-transistors! very musical and dynamic player, sounds more 'human' than arcam cd23 and more 3-mensional. excellent soundstaging and very strong detail/innerdetail. bass is simply stunning,very deep and excellent definition. very strong on ambiance and emotional involvement. If it was possible,I give it 6 stars!

Similar Products Used:

arcam fmj cd23- marantz cd6000'KI'- naim cd 5- rotel rcd991- cyrus cd 7- linn genki

None

Originally, I was going to purchase the CD-17 Mk II, but ended up getting a DVD player first.

I found the Marantz DV-18. It is an outstanding DVD player with quality that rivals DVD players of twice the cost. I figured I would use it as my CD player too - with the assumption that I would lose some CD play quality compared to the CD-17 Mk II.

As it turns out, my dealer later informed me that the DV-18 outperforms the CD-17 Mk II at CD playback quality. He told me that as a result of this Marantz has chosen to discontinue the making of the CD-17 Mk II. I have not confirmed that this is true, however I don't believe I was getting a sales pitch since the sales man knew I already purchased the DV-18.

I have not done an A-B comparison of CD playback on the two units. But I can strongly recommend listening to the DV-18 if you are considering the CD-17 MkII. It costs $200 more at $1200, and you get great DVD playback as well.

Enjoy,
Brian

Similar Products Used:

Marantz DV-18 DVD/CD player

I've had this very fine unit for about a month and I'm very pleased with it.I tried several other players in this price range (1,200) and none even came close to producing sounds just the way they are on the recording.
coupled with the Marantz PM-17 the sound is pure and operation simple.
As with most units in this price range i suggest premium inter-connects and upgrading the power cord.
This player does take considerable break-in time. I found it really mellowed after about 100 hrs.

Excellent build quality, Styling, Ease of Use, Dynamic Sound

None Except should be available at shops that sell the Usual Gear of Non-audiophile stuff.

A Great Starter Piece to begin An Audiophile System. Use as A Transport, connect to a Genesis Digital Lens, Then to a BelCanto Dac-1 & Get A Smooth Fluid Sound With an NAD Silverline Integrated Amp & Vienna Acoustics Hadyn Speakers, a Dedicated Sub, Monster 1.2s speaker cables, Monster 550 interconnects & Have A KILLER SYSTEM at a Semi-Budget Cost.
Frank F. (Frank's Sound Room)

Similar Products Used:

Marantz DR-17, Marantz CD-7, Cal Labs CL-15

Full, rich, analog-like sound

Needs tubes to sound best

This player has it all - built, refinement, drive, dynamics, bass, detail, etc. but you should partner it with good (not overly euphonic) tube equipment to get the most out of it. You should also forget about using speakers that are flat to bright (i.e. NHT, Thiel, Wilson, etc.) My Vandersteen/Music Reference combination seems to work pretty well. If you like this player and you have solid state gear, make sure you have a variety of interconnects for experimentation. Otherwise you may be disappointed if you're stuck with the wrong combination. In any case, your amp should be a Classe, PSE, McCormack, Bryston or better. Anything less is a waste of money with this CD player. If you have the Mk I, sell it immediately and buy the Mk II (the factory offers no upgrades); it is a much better machine for less money. The Mk II is also somewhat of a bargain since it sells for 20%-40% more in Europe depending on model designation.

Similar Products Used:

Rotel; Krell; Classe; Denon

Build Quality, Excellent sound

Bulky, no headphone output

This CD-Player was sold t around $1000. It is not very well known (few reviews), and uses an unusual technology (no Burr-Brown DAC, not 24 Bits, ...).
But it is very well build (16 Ibs, rigid, good quality components except Philips op-amps, shielding), sounds VERY good (no weakness ; it can perhaps be beaten on a specific criteria, but I don't know a sub-$1000 CD-Player without weakness like the Marantz CD-17-II).
Miles better than the CD-67SE, in a totally different class.
I didn't listen to the CD-17, but the mk-II has a better and more modern Philips mechanism, and a better digital filter (it was the weak point of the original model).
A little bit wider than other components (18" ?), which can be a problem.

Similar Products Used:

Marantz CD-67SE, CAL Icon II, Musical Fidelity E624, NAD 5100