For more of my content subscribe to KZfaq.com/@ThatGuyWithTheBeard

My name is Kevin Deal and I own Upscale Audio. I'm a hard-core Marantz collector. From the 2500, 2600, to Model 9's, Model 2, 10B, etc. I was just at a high-level meeting with upper management of Marantz, and I can tell you with calm assurance that you could not be more wrong. Joe Kiani is investing massive capital into Marantz as it's OWN BRAND and OWN SOUND. Including bringing back manufacturing to Japan on many models. I could not have been more impressed. This man is not just a genius. He wants to save the identity of the brand. He is a GOOD GUY.

Back in the 80s, I did a phone interview with Saul Marantz for a Maryland magazine on the pioneers of audio. I also spoke with David Hafler (co-founder of Dynaco and then another company bearing his name) and Paul Klipsch. They've all passed but their legacy in audio lives on.

Philips' involvement in Marantz goes way back further than the 90s. Both companies' CD players were effectively badge-engineered twins with different front panels, with the bulk of both brands' devices made at Philips' plant in Belgium and the high-end Philips and Marantz models made at the Marantz factory in Japan.

Great video on the history of an iconic audio brand. With all the research you have done on the brands from the past you should write a book on the rise and fall of Hi-Fi. You are becoming a Hi-Fi historian. Keep up the videos.

History of Marantz without even a mention in Ken Ishiwata!

Back in the '80's I had a Marantz 3300 pre amp with a Dynakit 35 amp, a Technics SL-7 turntable, an Aiwa AD-F990 cassette deck running through a pair of Altec Stonehenge I speakers. It was a great sounding system. I miss it.

These "historic" videos are always incredibly interesting. Thanks so much! I have a 2330 from 1977, and i'ts a monster. Incredibly well built and great sounding.

Absolutely- Kew Gardens! I lived quite close (born & bred in Queens). I quite happily loitered in stereo shops (and there were many) in the 70’s. It was an amazing time to be into hifi

I remember going to a store named the “Federated Group” in the 70’s. The salesman in the demo room would let us absolutely blast music through the various Marantz systems they had on display. They really did sound great especially when cranked up!

Awesome that his love of music drove him to create such iconic hi-fi gear. That’s kind of why I got into the hobby, for the love of high fidelity music playback. I think my father had a Marantz receiver when I was very young and I broke the tuning wheel by spinning it too much! Just thought it was cool.

Back in the early to mid seventies as a teenager I would sneak into the local stereo stores and gawk at the incredible unaffordable chrome machines adorned with countless switches, meters and dials and listen to what we today call classic rock on huge speakers. The Marantz receivers were the absolute pinnacle, occasionally I would dare touch the holy grail Gyro-Touch tuning knobs. It was a pretty good time to grow up. I still love my classic American hi-fi, but my true love today is the other vintage brand beginning with an “M“ - McIntosh…

I still have a 2230 receiver that I got in the late 70's "Lightly" used. I emphasized the "Lightly" because it had a completely broken Power push button. I soldered a toggle switch in and it worked fine. This was well before the internet made getting parts for these so much easier. It has the original wood cabinet and has been re-lamped (maybe a couple times?) but still works fine. I try to run current through it a couple times a year and so far, so good.

You almost touch on a topic I'd like to hear more about, the Sony Superscope 1/4 inch 4-track. In the 1970s I had two of these machines in a small studio I ran for the Track Records label in London. They were sort of like the well-known TEAC 4-tracks but a lot better in sound and transport mechanism. I've never seen any of them anywhere else, or on KZfaq.

Quite the story (and intriguing head-scratcher regarding the future of Marantz, not to mention the other well-known brands involved here). While I know you couldn't cover every prominent product Marantz produced within the span of this video, I'd give a shout-out to their Model 8/8b as the amplifier that helped Saul & Co. get serious attention from the late 1950s onward. Great presentation yet again!

This was outstanding and I love when you take us down memory lane. This reminds me of the history of Audio Research and how it has been sold many times. I think your next piece should be on Audio Research, also an Iconic Brand.

Some of this history is wrong. Philips bought Marantz in 1980, that why all of those early Marantz CD players are just rebadged Philips/Magnavox players. Apart from minor cosmetic and badging differences, the CD63 is a clone of the Philips CD100 and the Magnavox FD1000. Superscope continued to operate the North American dealer network and distribution until 1992. The original CD-63 was never $325, it was more like $800. Marantz made many CD players called CD-63 over the years, so it's easy to get mixed up when researching prices.

Can’t believe you didn’t touch on the infamous Marantz 2270 that was in a fire and on one of their ads with the owners back story how the unit survived and still worked after being burnt to a crisp.

I saved up my money from working in fast food during the 1970's to buy my first quality piece of audio equipment: The MARANTZ 2015 Stereo receiver. I was in my teens then. Damn that thing was beautiful! While hanging out at the stereo shop a month or so later I spotted the wood case for it. I jumped on it and completed my system. Rocked out for years!

Still have my Marantz 1060 integrated amp with walnut cabinet I bought new in 1975. Gorgeous in it’s simple yet elegant design. Still sounds like butter! Wish I still had the Advent Loudspeakers I originally paired them with it.

I like marantz, the 1974-1977, blue face time period were pretty good, but when they sold to phillips, the quality went down, the components were cheap, and when you had the misfortue to repair one, you saw that used the early desing STK ic power pack instead of discretes, the transformers were poor quality. If felt flimsy and when you opened one, you saw why. The power supply, tone control, pre-amp and power amplifier were on the same board, which also have the tuner. That's a sign that the quality dropped significantly in comparison with older series, in fact, the older superscope branded receiver were way better than anything that came out after 1978. If you can find one, I suggest this over any post 1978 model, they have the same construction, same components than the famous 22 serie for a fraction of the price. There was another major drop in quality in the 90s. I refuse to even open one from the phillips area because it just doesn't worth it. After the 1978 serie, the only thing they had in common with the older serie was the gyro tuner, and that's it. And I think it damaged the brand name à lot. If I'm not mistaken, the last US made amplifier is the marantz 500. I have a small trio of separate, 3200 pre-amp/ 112 tuner/ 140 power amplifier, they're from the same time period than the 22 series and I like them a lot. But I prefer separate systems, the only receiver I like, and it's a severely underrated one, is the MAC4100 from mcintosh, it's not the most powerful one, but the quality of construction and the electronic circuits by themselves are something else. I speak as a tech with more than 30 years of experience. I'm not an audiophile, I just love listening to music. Sorry for the bad grammar, english isn't my language. Edit : there's a reason why the 22 serie is sought after, and it's not only because of the look, the construction and circuits are better, with good modular construction, the power supply section are also very good, with good transformer. No matter if it's a low power model or something like 2270, they're all made with great care and with the same modular construction.

As an audiophile, it concerns me that many homes now use things like Sonos to get their music at home.

I love these audio history lessons. One thing that surprised me is that the early equipment had a TV input. I have been watching TV since the early 60s and I don't remember ever seeing a TV with an audio output. I do know that in the 70s people were tapping into the speaker output and making their own. Weird. Starting in the 70s I always bought amps based on specs. I never really considered Marantz because their specs never measured up. My son gave me a 2220b about 10 years ago and I was floored. Then I mentally kicked myself in the butt. It sounded great!

Philips owned Marantz outside the US from the early 80's. You forgot to mention Ken Ishwata.

My first turntable, amplifier and cassette deck were all budget Marantz, I had to buy my HiFi via my mum's John England catalogue :). The amp wasn't too awful but the decks were both junk, turntable suffered from feedback and the cassette deck got replaced twice before J.E gave me an Akai HX3 as an upgrade because of the problems, SD220 rings a bell. One of my friends had to go the catalogue route but chose Rotel, he's probably still using it. I wondered what happened to Marantz. Brilliant series BTW, thanks.

Wow, an absolutely huge thank you for putting this video together. It truly came out amazingly. From the way you delivered the verbal history to the accompanying pictures, it’s a 100% top notch overall story / description of Marantz’s history as a company. I was given a stunning example of a 2220B receiver which was not just recapped but fully refurbished. It still retains that warmer presentation Marantz is so famous for. I have a Tavish tube based phono stage going into the 2220B, then easily runs my Tekton Pendragon speakers due to their high sensitivity of aprox 95dB. It’s a perfect combination of old and new. FWIW, I also have a Quicksilver tube monoblock amps, a tube preamp, plus a Parasound a23+ SS amp, but I just can’t take the Marantz out yet, if ever.

I sure hope Marantz is around for a very long time. I have their components all around my house. They still make really great equipment.

I love these autobiographies on audio companies!! A couple of more interesting videos on Luxman, Kenwood, Nakamichi would be awesome.

I got it, with classic audio ownership often resting with more mature owners and it's ownership by a company knee deep in medical technology, build a New Marantz receiver/preamp with a built in AED! Imagine "Dark Side of the Moon" cascading in your listening space and uh oh, you feel hour chest tightening and with your Apple Watch a warning goes off on the Marantz and the attached AED lights up and the unit gives you instructions right through the speakers, "Money, you can't wait"......CLEAR! I like it.

We used to listen to music on our stereos. Now, our stereos listen to us.

Amazing history and story of this amazing audio equipment. Thank you for sharing this with us all and giving us an insight into early audiophile technology. Much appreciated.

My first-ever amplifier was a late 1980s Marantz I purchased in 1989. It was a PM 65 AV. It served me well for about 15 years, before it completely died, and I sold it on eBay. It was a rock-solid amplifier with excellent sound. To this moment, I'd always believed Marantz was a wholly Japanese company.

I found my old Kenwood receiver in my dad's garage after he passed away. I thought he threw it out 30 years ago when I joined the military. I'm sending it to a stereo restoration shop in St Petersburg FL. I've been shopping relentlessly for a new stereo the past 5 years. There's a few models I would consider if I won the lottery but overall there's not much to choose from today. Hi-Fi died sometime after the 80's. The industry has only itself to blame with mergers and acquisitions that destroyed innovation and design. Everything nowadays looks and performs identical to each other. Peel away the shiny branding sticker that you paid thousands of dollars for only to discover you got ordinary 'made in china' junk just like the garbage you find at your local BestBuy.

When I was in high school (late 70s) Marantz was total earcandy and drool fantasy. But it was way out of the reach of regular people to afford. I bought a used dbx unit from a pawn shop and I remember seeing the top end Marantz receiver there with 250 watts per ch RMS, the thing was a monster! I always wondered what that receiver would have sounded like.

When I was a college student in the early 1970s, I first became aware of Marantz from reading an audio component survey in Playboy magazine, lol. The article featured a photo of a 2270; I thought it was the most mesmerizing piece of stereo gear I'd ever seen. When I graduated a few years later, I treated myself to a 2270. I got 20+ years of solid, dependable use out of it, and I ended up giving it to my brother who continued enjoying it. In recent years, Marantz has come out with their Models 30, 40, and 50 integrated amps. They've all been well-reviewed. Thanks for the video; I enjoyed the history.

So sad ..we living and witnessing the fallen of audio companies and as much as the passing of great music artists... really sad times

I'm really loving this series. Will you do Macintosh as well?

This is why I have stuck with Yamaha. They have avoided being acquired, and have kept their focus intact as far as I can tell. Came *this* close to getting an Onkyo TX-RZ50 receiver but I decided against it (in favour of a Yamaha) because I was not sure if Onkyo would even be around after I made the purchase.

I had a *_Marantz_* Stereo Rack System I bought in 1991 _- 500 Watt Receiver, Dual Auto-Reverse Tape Deck, 7-Band EQ, CD Player, separate Radio tuner._ I bought it Factory Sealed off a CrackHead for $100. The system sold retail at that time for $900. I LOVED it. The Receiver lasted until 1999. The CD Player died next. Tuner & EQ I still have them despite My house having a fire & water damage. Now onto the Tape Deck, lasted for years as well. Before the fire, the tape decks started eating My Cassette Tapes. So I opened it to fix it, that I did, but one thing I noticed looking at some of the Parts inside including the main Circuit Board was *_TOSHIBA_* stamped on them. I opened the EQ same thing. All those years of having a *_"Marantz"_* wasn't a Marantz at all. They should have simply put TOSHIBA on the enclosure instead. I would have still bought it as I did like Toshiba anyway.

Thank you so much, what a walk down memory lane. I bought my 1st Hi Fi in 1977. A Marantz 1060, 105B Tuner, 2x HD 55 speakers and a connoisseur belt driven turn table. Sold it in 2012😫😫. Now I am going to recapture the past but better. Again thank you✌🏻✌🏻

I have a Marantz 2235B that been in my possession since 2015. Their classic receivers go for a pretty penny now. Despite that, they are well worth having.

There seems to be a pattern where good brands of the past are eradicated by mean corporate interests, where lack of culture in those corporations dominate alongside money mule tactics which destroy quality and soul of the brands all together.

A few years ago I purchased a Marantz Professional dual cassette tape deck to digitize old band recordings, and the quality is fantastic.

Love your videos! Also, congrats on 100k subscribers!!

I still have a pair of Marantz Imperial 7 speakers that I bought in 1977. Still sound great, only been worked on once in 46 years.

I love my grandfathers 2230 marantz radio reciever

The amount of research, time and scripting that went into this vid is immense. Hats off to all involved.

Acquired means dead.

Seeing the store takes me back to my youth when Hi Fi stores were everywhere. This video makes me wish I never sold my model 2500 and glad I still own a SM-6.

One of my favourite Marantz amps had to be the Michael D. Custer designed Sm-1000.

You missed something. From 1977 onwards there was a takeover by Philips for the first time. Marantz Europe appointed Ken Ishiwata (May 8, 1947 - November 25, 2019) as Technical Coordinator in 1978. After two years, Ken was appointed Product Development Manager and would later become Brand Ambassador. In December 1980, Marantz was acquired by Philips. Only Marantz America and Canada remained with Superscope. Released in 1983, the Marantz CD63 was one of the first CD players to hit the market, following the introduction of the Philips CD100. The Marantz CD63 was almost identical to the Philips CD100, with the only difference being the Marantz branding.

I am the original owner of a Marantz 4270. My setup at the time included a Philips turntable, Techniques cassette tape deck and ESS Heil speakers. The 4270 is the only component left. It’s beautiful in its cabinet and just looking at it brings back fond memories. My question is what would you do to either reconstruct a new system, sell or what?

I brought a Marantz SR7013 new and recently just out of warranty, 3 years & one month it shorted out and i'm told its major. You cant get new boards as they dont support their products that long apparently. That's $4500NZD down the gurglar. Very disappointed for such an expensive receiver. I don't think I would risk buying their home theatre components again as Its not durable at all and the company doesnt stand behind the gear.

Thanks for the great overview of the Marantz company and their great audio equipment. Love all your videos on these hi-fi icons.

I found a 2240 on Craigslist 20 years ago. One channel was in an out, all the pots were dirty, etc. But, it was in gorgeous shape. I talked him down to 40 bucks. Spent 400 having it recapped and professionally restored. Every little gizmo on the circuit boards was replaced. It's perfect. I am told that today its worth around 1500 bucks but it is not for sale.

I love these historical presentations!

A fantastic history on Marantz!

My 1300DC lasted 40 years. I looked for replacement with similar specs and quality and couldn’t find anything comparable / matching my expectations!

It’s just so iconic that I can’t stop saying the word “iconic.”

This was a very good and informative video, much appreciated. Those 2230s and really that whole lineup when restored are just so good lookin, and makes a decent preamp too.

Still in use every day : Marantz 2226b , Marantz 1122dc , Marantz 5030 , Marantz 2130 all in new woodcases , all in perfect optical and technical condition & new Marantz AV 7706.

Denon and Marantz are doing quite well. Quality wise also. So this "end of" is just your own b.s. opinion.

I still have my Marantz EQ551 Graphic Equalizer Spectrum Analyser. Had it since 1993-4. still working great

Good job. No mention of the model 8b was the most popular stereo power amps ever. The model 9 is for me the best sounding amp by far of any of the classic stuff unmodified. The 10b FM tuners are to this day unequaled .

Keep up these awesome stories. Gotta get to your store. Yep didn't realize that these receivers wouldn't be around forever

As I watch this and look at my 2030, I realize that I like it as much now as the day I purchased it in 1972.

Marantz product range in the 90s is dismissed in less than 20 seconds. Wow. A decade containing the Marantz CD52 MKII SE, considered to be the best pound for pound CD player ever made, or the KI Signature series? Really?

Glad you stressed that he was a graphic artist. I knew Saul Marantz in the 70's and he was a great storyteller. His start in electronics was trying to bring a car radio into his home. He still lived in the second home he ever bought. His first engineer knocked on his front door and as hard as he tried, couldn't improve on his preamp design. Couldn't find potentiometers which could track until Cosmos.

I recently bought my 1st Marantz product, a sr6009 AVR. It does everything i could ever want it to. I typically use vintage equipment and speakers but this thing is the heart of my home theater system SO... I went with something more modern that supports 4k and other modern features. Aside from SiriusXM not being supported anymore and the Marantz apps made for this unit and others not working its a great AVR.

I still have a PM230 in my Bedroom and it's great for that size of room with separates that span 4 decades! ✌🙏❤🍻🇬🇧

Ahh Marantz....I remember working part-time at Radio Shack as a teen in the early '90's. I'd a have an older fella drop in regularly to tell me stories about vintage Marantz. I didn't know much about the brand. I just thought he just needed someone to talk to as he rambled on. If I had known better I should have invested a little more time picking up some used Marantz receivers back then. I'm sure people we're probably selling them for dirt cheap on the used market.

Very interesting but I believe you are missing a big important part of Marantz history, that is when it was split in two: in 1980 Superscope sells the Marantz brand, dealer network, and all overseas assets (except U.S. and Canada) to Philips Electronics, afterwards the quality began diverging, having better quality the ones from the Philips side and dregrading the ones from the SuperScopeside, Philips realized this was hurting the brand perception and in 1992 acquires U.S. and Canada trademarks and dealer network to create Marantz America and Marantz Professional was created with rights given to SuperScope but with the requirement the products be developed and manufactured by Marantz Japan in order to be certain of their quality. SuperScope history is also very interesting.

Growing up in the 70's in an upscale neighborhood, I remember well all the Marantz stereo systems of my neighbors. In the 90's, as a young adult, all that equipment was available at garage sales and thrift stores, in favor of shitty compact CD stereo systems. Today is even worse, with data compressed MP3's, satellite and internet music. Yeah, I'm a grumpy old boomer ;)

There is the rarest Marantz Model 10 (not the 10B) FM tuner in which only 100 units were built. The first 8 units were owned by Saul's family. My friend that was good friends with Saul got serial number 9. I wanted to mention this his tuner may be out there...

I had 2 Marantz 2245's one of which I just lost in a house fire along with my 1300 vinyl albums and my JBL L100's. I still have my original 2245 which I purchased when I was in the army, which I'm going to have restored and try to rebuild my collection, but I'm sure it will be a daunting task. It's an awesome receiver nonetheless. Great video.👍

Like most things, Philips destroyed all their consumer electronics business. Extremely bad management.

I still love the sound my 2250 receiver puts out nothing on the market sounds like it. Cheers all

I wish Masimo would sell Sound United to someone else. Maybe Apple would buy that. That wouldn’t be a bad thing since Apple didn’t change Beats Audio too much other than giving their headphones a bit more balanced sound higher build quality. I do miss having the beats audio software on my phone and think it made my music sound a lot more clearer and more livelier.

I've owned a small installation company for almost 20 years, and I can tell you that ALL I want from Marantz is better reliability. When I have to talk my client into a brand, I don't want it to go two or three years before it starts having HDMI issues. That's it. In my opinion, the rest is mostly irrelevant these days. You can tell me all day how great Marantz sounds, but if I put you in front of an A-B-X test, you wouldn't be able to distinguish your favorite Marantz from a basic Sony stereo receiver. Sorry to burst everyone's bubble.

that was perfectly written and presented, with more info I could absorb. Gotta watch again!

Marantz and Denon are finished. Best stick with Yamaha, at least they make most of their own stuff. Im worried for Pioneer/Onkyo too.

My Marantz DVD player was a steaming pile of detritus. It had major issues reading very slightly soiled discs that other players had no issues with. It's only redeeming feature was the ability to programme it to make it multi-region.

And at 5:40 history as I predicted is being Re Written due to the overuse of Blue LEDs for backlighting now. Every unit I worked on in the 80's from the 70's had Green/blue Light polarizers over the fuse type light bulbs producing a predominantly green with a touch of blue display panel. These ultra blue panels now being seen due to blue LEDs being used in my opinion is hideous.

I would love to get my model 2 amps running again. I love the sound of those things. They worked good for guitar also.

Hai fatto bene a fare un video sulla storia della marantz,marca leggendaria

You know your history well. Great job. I was a Marantz Dealer. Cobra did not know what to do with Marantz and let it flounder.They were great until Phillips acquired them.

its all very depressing ....I know its progress but it's still a shame. on a positive note ... I love your channel and if I were to ever visit your shop, I would end up skint !

Have had a Marantz PM4200 amp since the early 2000's. Fab!

My biggest problem with the modern Marantz is why would you spend more for a Denon.

Saul sold marantz because the 10b Development had been so costly. Marantz moved to Japan because the factory in NY where the model 19 was burnt down. They were on the verge of launching model 22, when the factory burnt down they urgently looked for an alternative : standard radio in Japan… that is why the model 22 is a piece of crap. Later Marantz bought standard radio…. Some say the fire in the NY plant wasn’t an accident …the Tuchinski bothers needed an excuse to move to a low cost country. I was told this by one of the engineers that worked on the 510 development…

Usually nothing good comes from acquisitions and takeovers in the end.

Loved the blue face units.

HiFi is dead.. it's been for long time, both the industry itself and the new generation of morons that doesn't know better than iPhones and Airpods. Hifi? The art of listening to music? The thrill of actually listening to just ONE SONG OR TRACK with select audio equipment?. Say what? Most people now-a-days have no idea what anything is anymore, music included. It's all over, but the memories stay and for those who know, the vintage audio gear still available today is worth more gold and pure listening pleasure with each passing day✨✨✨✨✨

The first secs of all of your videos I wonder which substance you're on 😆🤣

Marantz Consolette shown at the beginning is mechanically made the same way high end pro audio gear meant for 24/7 use. Carbon composition resistors are what everyone used at the time, so nothing special, difference with Marantz are high quality switches, elaborate circuit design, a lot of playback flexibility because LP standards were not yet set for RIAA, hard wiring (point to point wiring) is another great thing. High end audio seems to be meeting the same fate as many pro audio companies ran by families; they are bought by bigger companies who then ruin them for various reasons, or make their products far from what they once were. Even signal transformer companies like Sowter have been bought by huge companies who are not often not making custom stuff.

It's interesting that you didn't mention the link between Marantz and Standard Radio. Standard Radio, Japan were manufacturers of some of the finest ham radio tranceivers of their era being one of the first to release dual band VHF/UHF equipment. Much of their technology passed into the Yaesu brand.

Dude! You are good at these historic lessons! CerwinVega! Please😃

I was left £700 in my grandads will when I was 18 in 1985 and I spunked most of it on a Marantz system, hooked up to an old set of AR speakers. It included a cd player that cost nearly as much as the rest of the separates put together. I never regretted that purchase, and still have it, minus the cd player, in the attic.

Not a mention of the iconic budget CD player the CD52 mk2, which left many more expensive and big name cd player at the starting plate, this when Phillips owned them.

Very nice walk through Marantz history. Quite enjoyable.