Description
Marantz PM6004
When “What Hi-Fi Sound and Vision?” gave the PM6003 the “Best amplifier in its class” award, the performance bar was well and truly raised for its successor: the PM6004. Fortunately, Marantz design engineers enjoy nothing better than a real challenge. And they seized this upgrade opportunity to further improve this already excellent amplifier by refining the sound and optimising the balance from Bass to Mid to Highs for a performance full of harmony. The strategic difference is that now both the pre-amplification and power amplification sections exclusively feature discrete components – not a single IC in sight. Specially selected single components not only outperform ICs in quality, they also make it possible to refine the sound in much more detail, resulting in more clarity and transparency in the sound stage. Of course the lower impedance Toroidal transformer with case-shield has been retained, so too has the customized main capacitors, and the potential power transistor which is mounted on the extruded aluminium heat sink and can easily handle higher currents to keep close control of speakers. All of this proven, superior technology has been retained. And of course all of the original features - such as six-line audio input including phono, two-pairs of gold-plated speaker connections with the convenience of bi-wiring, and a remote handset - are still there. All that’s now required is a lover of music.
Marantz CD6004
How do you improve a “What Hi-Fi Sound and Vision?” award-winner? Easy: just continue the same painstaking philosophy of product dedication, keep even the tiniest of details at the top of mind, do everything possible to optimize mechanism and potent power supply, insist on premium digital-to-analogue conversion with CS4398, and ensure a mirrored symmetrical output stage with Marantz-own HDAM-SA2 amplifiers. And when all that is done, check it all again and fine-tune with even more specially selected components. We also added a solid metal bottom-plate and centralised the CD mechanism’s location. That is how, for example, we virtually eliminated vibration. In addition, the stable, oversized power supply feeds the digital and analogue circuitry of the player, where the high-quality CS4398 converts digital signals to analogue, this is then ‘pushed’ to the gold-plated synch outputs by Marantz’s own small signal amplifier, the HDAM-SA2. Altogether the CD6004 is a match made in heaven for the music lover who wants nothing but the best performance at an attractive price. And one more thing it’s also perfect for lovers of portable music, thanks to its iPod-digital connectivity.
