[Spareribs]

Hi.

I am in the market for a good turntable. I see on ebay that there are used Marantz turntables from the 70's that are not too expensive. Yes, they are also not cheap either. Around a couple hundred dollars.

Are these Marantz turntables considered to be worthy?

The current turntable that I have now is a Kenwood from the 80's but I really don't like it. So that's my primary experience with record players.

Any input is welcome. Thanks.

 

[Herandu]

Marantz have always been high-end to exotic with everything they made. Not many of us had that sort of spare cash in the 70's to afford a Marantz TT. I have played with a few since the company I worked for was a retailer of high-end audio equipment. Those TT never came in for repair. That's how reliable they are. Sound wise they are also in the super league, but you won't see that mentioned often since not many people could afford to own one (I mentioned this earlier..).

They are sonically better than the Luxman, Denon, Micro Seiki. I can't think of a single Technics other than the SP-10 that could match the Marantz.

If you like the styling then go for it. Don't try to compare them to the Thorens, Rega etc. The Marantz were designed and sold to those who wanted something a lot better. The current eBay prices reflect that even after more than 30 years.

 

[Spareribs]

this is very interesting to me. thank you.

I may get one of those 70's marantz TT. It's not too expensive and they look gorgeous!

 

[Herandu]

There is a 6350Q on ebay under 220114038238 that is a good and excellent sounding TT.
The Marantz Exotect TT-1000 is the daddy of them all. Collectors item you would struggle to buy anywhere. They are rarer than an honest politician.

 

[memepool]

Marantz tables from the '70s weren't bad at all but I think 200 is a bit steep. Under or around 100 is a fairer price for most of them. Which table did you have in mind?

Classic Marantz from the 70's is very collectible in the US and this drives the prices up over and above what you are actually getting in terms of performance I feel.
Thorens or Technics are much better on the whole in this kind of pricerange. You could get an SL1200 or SL1500 or a TD150 which have the added beneftit of being upgradable whereas most of those old Marantz decks arn't.

The high end Marantz decks like the TT-1000 are really Japanese superdecks from the 1980's and belong to a different era when the company was under Philips ownership.

Although the original American Marantz company did innnovate in turntables and even tried unsuccessfully to make a Linear tracking deck in the 1960's, they weren't as proficient as they were in other fields like amps and tuners which is what they were mainly famed for.

 

[Spareribs]

Quote:

Originally Posted by memepool /img/forum/go_quote.gif Marantz tables from the '70s weren't bad at all but I think 200 is a bit steep. Under or around 100 is a fairer price for most of them. Which table did you have in mind?

Nothing in particular. I was justy brousing on ebay and saw the 6xxx series from the mid and late 70's. I've seen them range in price from over $200 to around $400.

I'll also look into a Thorens. If I can find one for around $300, it's probably a better value I suppose.

 

[memepool]

Anything over 150USD is silly money for pretty much any turntable Marantz made in the 1970s. I have had a 6100, 6025 and 6170. They were pretty average, equivalent in performance terms to low to mid level Technics decks from the same period, certainly nothing near approaching the SL1100, 120 / 1200, 150 or 1500, never mind the proper hi-end Technics like the SP-10.

The only really interesting deck Marantz made before the Philips takeover was the SLT which I would pay more for because it's one of the first attempts at Linear tracking, so it has historical significance, even though it's alledged to be a turkey and was quickly withdrawn. The first real linear tracker is the Bang and Olufsen Beogram 4000, which I am still attempting to coax back into life..

These inflated prices are mostly down to sites like this http://www.classic-audio.com/marantz/mindex.html which gets a little misty eyed in the presence of those chunky gold buttons and dials perhaps. Even http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marantz has been infected by this nostalgia it seems.

Frankly it's nonsense when you consider that Marantz under Philips ownership were making amps like this http://www.quarter-a.netfirms.com/pm-94_oak.htm in the 1980s. Not to mention of course the excellent Philips based CD players which Marantz made like the CD94 / DAC94 , CD 12, CD7...

And then there are the Marantz pro cassette decks made in the '80s like CP430 which rather than buiding on the great skill of '70s Marantz in cassette decks, owe more I suspect to the fact that Superscope (who owned Marantz then) were marketing Sony built decks in the USA before Sony themselves set up an American subsidiary. The CP-430 is I believe really a distant relative of the Sony TCD-D5 therefore. You only have to look at this http://www.classic-audio.com/marantz/mpa.html and realise that Marantz never even sold an open reel machine to guage the provenance of their engineering skills with tape decks.