[daltonlanny]

Hello,
I was reading some info on the Marantz Europe website about their new CD6002 CD player.
All the info I read sounded interesting.
I could not find anything about it on the Marantz USA website.
Does anyone have any idea why this unit is not available in the USA?
Does anyone know whether or not it might be available at a later date in the USA?
Any info would be appreciated.
Thanks.

 

[tvrbob86]

Quote:

Originally Posted by daltonlanny /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hello, I was reading some info on the Marantz Europe website about their new CD6002 CD player. All the info I read sounded interesting. I could not find anything about it on the Marantz USA website. Does anyone have any idea why this unit is not available in the USA? Does anyone know whether or not it might be available at a later date in the USA? Any info would be appreciated. Thanks.

Short answer: I think that Marantz thinks that they won't sell enough to make it worth their while.

Lo-o-o-ng answer:

An hour or so before starting this thread, I emailed Marantz to find out about U.S. availability of the CD6002 and said that I thought it would be cool if they offered it in gold. I figured since it was a Sunday I would not get a response until sometime Monday at the earliest. To my surprise, about two hours and twenty minutes later I received a response that said: "In the US, we will only carry the CD5001, CC4001 and the SA8001." I assume the person responding was a weekend customer service representative.

Two days later, I received another response from an associate marketing manager for Escient, Marantz, and Snell Acoustics saying: "Thank you for your interest in Marantz. We are not currently planning on the CD6002 for the US market. Should we bring it in, it would be in black."

If you are at all interested, I encourage you to contact Marantz and let them know you'd like to see the CD6002 in the U.S. market.

A few weeks before coming across the CD6002, I had decided that I wanted a CD5001 (or possibly an SA8001). I knew Cambridge Soundworks carried Marantz gear, so I figured I'd see if any area stores had them in stock. Then I realized that Cambridge Soundworks closed all of their brick & mortar locations about six months ago.

I went back to the Marantz website and looked for dealers in my area. I found one about 15 miles away in Massachusetts, and one about 30 miles away in New Hampshire.

I called the Mass dealer. It turned out not to be a store but the cell phone number of a custom home theater installer. He was very friendly and told me that he could order one for me. We talked about audio and home theater for about 15 minutes and he basically told me that no one he deals with buys dedicated CD players anymore. It's all DVD players or hard drive-based systems. Of course, that's the business he's in, but keep in mind that he's listed as one of the few Marantz dealers in my well-populated area.

I then called the NH dealer and got a message saying that they wouldn't be around for a couple of weeks. Clearly not an actual store.

Around the same time, I went to Tweeter to see what they had for CD players. They had exactly one, the 5-disc carousel Yamaha (I can't remember if it was the CDC-697 or CDC-685). Sort of the same story in the Magnolia section of BestBuy. I took a quick look around and the only CD player was a 5-disc Denon.

I think Marantz finds themselves in a tough segment of the market with their non-Reference line players. In my area, the dealers that sell that level of audio components are either closing their doors (Cambridge Soundworks) or attempting to recover from bankruptcy (Tweeter). Product-wise, below them, there's the cheap DVD and universal players; above them, the Hi(er)-Fi market. And that's not even getting into iPods and MP3 players and computer-based sources.

Marantz cannot really replace the CD5001 with the CD6002, since the CD6002 is priced 67% higher. If they add it to the existing line, you wonder whether it will take more business away from competitors like Cambridge Audio, or cannibalize sales from their own CD5001 and SA8001. If they don't bring it here, though, you have to wonder if they are just ceding that segment of the market to Cambridge Audio.

I think that sometimes we as enthusiasts over-estimate the sales potential of audio products, and I wonder if to a company the size of Denon/Marantz it might not be more practical to focus its resources on the larger home theater and the higher margin Reference Series audio markets. I hope that's not the case.

 

[HiWire]

The market for mid-fi is dying, I think. Take a look at Sony's audio player lineup... it basically starts and stops at the 9000ES, which I think may be over 4 years old. Their other SACD players are consumer-level, and they have drastically reduced the number of CD players that they sell - I think they're all changers.

 

[jwilldermood]

I wonder if there is a correlation between the decline in mid-fi and the decline of the economy/middle class.

 

[HiWire]

Absolutely not. People may not be spending as much money on entertainment, but I think that's mostly due to widespread piracy and the availability of free online content.

I was going to add a note to what I wrote above; if you take a look at the British and foreign brands, there is more interest there in mid-fi. Companies like Cambridge Audio, NAD, and others seem to be doing well catering to that market... the supply side just doesn't exist to the same extent in North America. We don't seem to have any significant mid-fi audiophile industry here; and it's dying out in Japan.

 

[vcoheda]

Quote:

Originally Posted by daltonlanny /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hello, I was reading some info on the Marantz Europe website about their new CD6002 CD player. All the info I read sounded interesting. I could not find anything about it on the Marantz USA website. Does anyone have any idea why this unit is not available in the USA? Does anyone know whether or not it might be available at a later date in the USA? Any info would be appreciated. Thanks.

if you're not happy with your player, maybe you need to make a jump to the next level. more expensive gear doesn't always equate with better - but it often can.

 

[skullguise]

tvrbob86, if you're in the same/similar area as me, check out Ensemble in Nashua NH, or Fidelis in Derry NH. Both should offer you some decent CD player options. Price may vary, though....

PS - you just missed out, BTW, on a nice deal I had, Rega Apollo local sale for $600.

 

[memepool]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jwilldermood /img/forum/go_quote.gif I wonder if there is a correlation between the decline in mid-fi and the decline of the economy/middle class.

I think you're not far off the mark there since what you are calling mid-fi is sold as budget stuff in the UK and this difference is down to the weakness of the dollar.

But it's not all bad news.

In recent years in Europe we have seen saturation in the home theatre market with prices of cheap DVD players plummeting to the point where supermarkets like the Wallmart owned ASDA, sell non branded chinese import complete surround systems and flatscreen TV's for peanuts.

The margins for "home cinema" specialist installers have therefore evapourated and there has been something of a renaissance of 'two channel' ie traditional Hi-Fi.

This market has never really gone away for small UK companies like Cambridge Audio at the lower end of the market but recently there has been a return of the more specialist Japanese major brands like Pioneer, Denon and Onkyo.

 

[daltonlanny]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vcoheda /img/forum/go_quote.gif if you're not happy with your player, maybe you need to make a jump to the next level. more expensive gear doesn't always equate with better - but it often can.

Again, I am not looking to upgrade.
I am perfectly happy with my 840c.
I was only asking a question out of curiousity.

 

[soloz2]

you're not the only one. I specifically asked my local Marantz dealer about the cd6002 (I own a cd5001) and he can't get it, which isn't surprising.

 

[IPodPJ]

One of my friends, and he's a member here too, told me that Denon now owns Marantz. Is that true?

 

[soundboy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by IPodPJ /img/forum/go_quote.gif One of my friends, and he's a member here too, told me that Denon now owns Marantz. Is that true?

Not exactly. Both Denon and Marantz share a parent company, D&M Holdings. D&M also owns McIntosh, Boston Acoustics, Snell, and Rio.

 

[Ham Radio Nut]

You have to realize that one of the reasons the market is getting tougher for these kinds of products, is because MP3 portability and convenience is winning out over better sound achieved via a home stereo or 5.1 setup. I've spoken to so many youngsters online that actually DON'T KNOW or UNDERSTAND what a home stereo system is!!!!