Marantz have decided to release a budget CD player and Amplifier. The CD5003 and PM5003.
Not everybody wants to stream their music from the computer and Marantz CD5003 is the simple solution. It retails for £200 but is still packed full of state of the art engineering. It makes use of the Marantz’s new M1 reference-standard chassis. This has a rigid, reinforced base, glass-fibre resin side panels and a three-piece construction front panel comprising thick aluminium and reinforced glass-fibre resin. Such solid construction virtually eliminates mechanical vibration that can interfere with the sensitive audio signal. The CD5003 also employs the well-known CS4392 24-bit/192kHz digital-to-analogue converter from Cirrus Logic.
The CD5003 can play CD-R and CD-RW, MP3 and WMA-enabled discs and displays CD-Text information such as artist name and track titles. A choice of coaxial or optical digital outputs combined with the high-grade, gold-plated analogue out guarantees the best connectivity.
Marantz have also given us a budget amp the PM5003. This will fit nicely along side the CD player and retails for £230. Outputting an impressive 80 watts and also has current feedback architecture in the volume amplifiers and power amplifiers which are normally found in more expensive Marantz amplifiers.
The PM5003 also comprises independent pre-amplifier, power amplifier and tone control sections, while the power amplifier is a completely discrete design and the tone control amplifier is an active filter type. Finally, the PM5003 is equipped with an input buffer circuit for improving S/N ratio and channel separation.