marantz

AV receivers have a well-deserved reputation as giant, unsightly boxes, but over the last few years Marantz has shown that good sound can come in smaller packages.

The company refreshed its AV receiver line today adding two new slimline models, the NR1504 and NR1604. They're two new step-up models to last year's NR1403, which will continue to stay in the line.

Here's how I'd break down the most important features:

NR1504 ($500): 5.1 channels, six HDMI inputs (including one front-panel input), Audyssey MultEQ, networking via Ethernet, built-in AirPlay, networking, setup assistant NR1604 ($650) step-ups: 7.… Read more

I've always been a big fan of Denon receivers' sound quality, but now the company's really getting serious about headphones. Yes, it's made headphones for years, including some really nice ones, so I was unprepared for the radical rethinking of Denon's headphone line. I was treated to an advance preview of upcoming Denon, Marantz, and Boston Acoustics products on Tuesday in Mahwah, N.J.… Read more

It's a strange turn of events, but mainstream manufacturers long ago gave up on the idea of selling receivers on the basis of superior sound quality. I'm not claiming today's receivers sound "bad," but since almost no one ever listens to a receiver before they buy one, selling sound quality is next to impossible.

Back in the days when brick-and-mortar stores ruled the retail market, audio companies took pride in their engineering skills and designed entire receivers in-house. Right up through the 1980s most of what was "under the hood" was designed and … Read more

Reports of the death of the CD have been greatly exaggerated. With sales hovering around 326 million units in the U.S. in 2010, the CD still generates a sizable hunk of income for the music business. You may not give a hoot about that, but if you care about sound quality, it still makes sense to buy a great-sounding CD player. I buy one or two CDs a week on average, and as I recently pointed out, it may be a very long time before iTunes or Amazon ever get around to selling CD-quality downloads. Why waste your money … Read more

AirPlay is making the rounds at CES this year, and now it's coming to Denon and Marantz receivers.

D&M Holdings, the company that owns both Denon and Marantz, announced today that several of the companies' receivers are getting AirPlay support. Apple's AirPlay, which allows consumers to wirelessly stream songs from their iTunes libraries on their computer, iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch to another device, is available for the Denon AVR-4311CI and Denon AVR-991, among others. It's also available for the company's N7 Networked CD Receiver and 2.0 Channel Speaker System.

Those who own … Read more

I've reviewed a bunch of midpriced receivers over the past few months, and came away impressed by the quality of all of them. Pioneer's VSX-1020 was an immediate front-runner, and I love the Marantz NR1601's rich sound. Yamaha's RX-V667 was no slouch, but Sony's STR-DN1010 didn't thrill me as much as the others. The receivers all carry MSRPs between $500 and $600; street prices are $100 or so less.

So it was the Denon AVR-1911 that took top honors, it just sounded better to my ears than the others. Bass definition was superb; upper … Read more

Snell Acoustics never strayed from its core principles. The company, founded by Peter Snell in 1976, continued to manufacture high-end loudspeakers in Massachusetts until this year. I first met Peter in 1978 while working at a NYC high-end audio dealer, and soon bought one of his original speakers, a Snell Type A. I had it for eight years.

Peter was a perfectionist about the sound and the build quality of his speakers. The cabinets were exquisitely finished, but the amount of handiwork invested in the parts the customer never saw was even more impressive.

Though most of the better speaker manufacturers demand a minimum measurement variation for their suppliers' tweeters and woofers, Snell went the extra mile and hand-tuned each crossover network to compensate for the drivers' response irregularities. Then a computer measured the speaker's response, and a technician noted the difference between the desired flat curve and the speaker's actual frequency response.

The hand-tweaking process continued until the speaker measured within Snell's unusually tight tolerances. The painstaking effort ensured all completed speakers measured within exceedingly tight tolerances (+/-0.5 decibels) of the original design prototype. Every Snell buyer heard exactly what the designer intended.

All Snells, including the most affordable models, were built this way, and all cabinets were assembled and finished by hand. Few American speaker companies continue to maintain that approach; most outsourced manufacturing long ago.

If a Snell customer ever needed a replacement tweeter, midrange, or woofer, that part was supplied with its associated crossover parts, again matched to the original spec; and this was done for speakers 10, 20, and even 30 years after they were sold. That remarkable commitment to customer service is rare in today's market, but Snell was a very special company.

Peter dropped by my store on a regular basis, usually to discuss music or future plans. When I moved to a new apartment with unfriendly room acoustics, he offered to help. He spent three or four hours experimenting with different placement scenarios before coming up with a rather unusual strategy that worked. He really was a great guy, totally committed to designing speakers that advanced the state of the art.… Read more

There are surprisingly few multinational audio companies.

I'm talking about big companies that just make speakers and audio electronics, so that leaves Sony and Panasonic out of the picture. Bose and D & M Holdings (Denon, Marantz, Boston Acoustics, etc) come to mind, but Harman International has a longer reach. Harman owns AKG (headphones, microphones), Harman/Becker Automotive Systems, Crown (professional audio), Harman Kardon (receivers), Infinity (speakers), JBL (speakers), Lexicon (high-end electronics), Mark Levinson (car and high-end audio electronics), Revel (speakers), Soundcraft (professional audio), and Studer (professional audio).

Some brands, like JBL and Lexicon, make consumer and pro gear, and in the case of JBL, speakers for every budget, from entry-level hi-fi and home theater all the way up to recording studios, movie theaters and stadium sound systems.

I was thinking about all that because the Harman Mobile Showroom was in NYC last week for the Architectural Digest Home Design Show. It may soon be in a town near you, or you can take a virtual tour and see and learn more about Harman's Mobile Showroom.

I liked the sound at the Mobile Showroom and chatted with Todd Packer, a technical product and project manager for Harman, about the gear. The company's intention, "To make a strong design statement," came through loud and very clear. … Read more

I have no idea why giant electronics companies like Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, or Samsung never really tried to enter the audiophile market in the U.S.

Sure, Sony's very first SACD player, the $5,000 SCD-1 was a spectacularly good-sounding component; Sharp made an exotic, very high-end digital amplifier a few years ago; and back in the 1970s Panasonic's Technics gear was pretty impressive. I'm sure those companies are still producing no-holds-barred audio for their home markets. So the know-how is there, but apparently little interest in sending it here.

The first-generation Marantz audio products were designed and built by Saul B. Marantz in his home in Kew Gardens, New York, in the 1950s. The company truly advanced the state of the art, and those early Marantz designs now fetch big bucks on eBay. By the 1960s Marantz started building gear in Japan, and the company was sold and resold over the intervening decades. But through good times and bad, Marantz stayed true to its roots and always made above-average-sounding products, bettering the offerings from larger companies like Sony and Panasonic sold in the U.S.

Robert J. Reina's enthusiastic Marantz PM5003 integrated amplifier review in the January 2010 issue of Stereophile started me thinking about affordable high-quality gear from mainstream manufacturers. Yes, it can happen.

The Marantz PM5003 ($450) is a stereo integrated amplifier; it puts out 40 watts per channel. It was designed in Japan and made in China.

Do you have a turntable? Great, you can plug it directly into the PM5003; it has a rather sophisticated moving-magnet phono stage that'll bring out the very best sound from your records. The PM5003 also has five line-level inputs, two record outputs, a balance control, a headphone amplifier, treble, bass, and loudness controls. … Read more