Marantz CD5001 Review

[Soundsgreat]

Hi All,
Marantz CD5001 Review:

First and foremost the following is my perception and need not be compared to any other for any mistakes or misinterpretations!!

First Look
First of I got to unpack the player! I was little surprised to see the decent packing, It had the usual manual, remote, a stereo RCA interconnect, digital Co-Axial cable and off course the player !

The player I received for Review was Silver with brushed front fascia, the build quality was very good with the gold plated output jacks and decent gauge overall enclosure!
The player has the usual RCA Analogue out (stereo), optical & Co-Axial digital out.

The remote is a big letdown for the player of this price and this quality!! It looks like a cheap Chinese player’s remote. But the buttons are sort of well laid and easy to access, so I guess nothing much to complain in that front!



I plugged in the player and from the word go the player had me going for it!! It sounded very composed without a single minute of Burning, which is very rare and vital sign of good player. Though I decided to Burn-in for a considerable amount of time (it wouldn't be fair on my part to just to hurry and finish ) for a proper review so popped in the XLO reference Burn-in CD (thank god for it, makes life much easier) and repeated the main track 4 times which is about 15 mins,so in total 1 Hour of Burn-in time, Now I don’t know that accounts to how many hours of normal Burn-in, also since nothing is mentioned in the CD booklet about the minimum Break-in or Burn-in period that the player requires !! So I thought its enough (at least for testing and reviewing purpose). I guess I can easily take 5-10 hours normal usage is equal to this 15min track ( coz of the high sound level and complete frequency sweep),so that’s like roughly 30-50 hours !!

A closer look
Before we go to the real sound part and other things let me just brief you about the player and inside of it,




This model has regular E&I transformer in the power supply (their KI Signature Edition usually has a very efficient Torroid Transformer) and the components quality are ok (not cheap not very expensive) the power supply section is not separate like its higher end siblings and is in the same PCB as the main, In fact there's only one PCB for the entire Player (not counting the Front Panel one)!



The player boasts a Sony drive mechanism with the most commonly available 213C lens in it! Well on the flip side it’s not something that I’d expect from a marantz like company (due to its tracking sensitivity and other issues)! But on the positive side you are much better of and safe in case of a lens failure (though that might take couple of years of normal usage) coz its very easily available and at a fraction of what the other higher end Philips lens that resides in the likes of old CD 63 mark 2, KI, SE etc would’ve costed!! The lens costs only a mere Rs. 600 + for an original and even more stupendous 60 bugs for a china one (though who wants to use is a different question)!! Having said that I'd also like to mention the fact that, as said its the most commonly used Lens in the industry (many majors use the same) which goes on to show that its just not cheap alternative to the pricier one's from Sony itself and other manufacturers, This Lens does have a good readability and decent tracking (not the best in the Business) so one should not take the above observations in a negative fashion!



Another major thing I noticed in the player was the use of ferrite core for all the major power wires in throughout the internal wiring! What this Implies to is, the ferrite will reduce the Electrical interface (EMI, Electro Magnetic Interface) to other section where this wire passes! This also helps to keep RF (Radio frequency) interface at bay! This I’ve not seen in many players costing twice! Its not that it costs the earth but few feel the need or lack of it!! Mention of wiring brings us to the quality of the wires used, Again nothing much to complain! As the wires used are of very good quality and are of 26 Gauge (except for the Power) thickness which is very good!



Coming to the components layout, it is well laid with the power section though not separate, does not come close to DAC or other Audio stages!! And the DAC or ADC (don’t know which one since I didn’t dig deeper or remove the PCB from the Unit) having put at the almost center of what is sort of an L shaped PCB of the Unit!! Where as the other at the side of the PCB! There no congestion or clutter in the layout, nice and clean!!




Attention leans to the front panel of the Player, here you’ll find the usual Marantz arrangement of keys and the loading mechanism! The CD tray pops-out from the left of the Unit and the display is bang in the center of the front panel and below it are the four buttons, Time, Edit, Peak and Display off (A welcome addition for late night listening & to please an Audiophile I presume) on the right of the Unit you find buttons for opening the CD tray, playback, stop and pause.



On the top half, while in the lower half you find the next and previous track selection buttons, these two buttons also doubles as rewind and forward buttons if you press and hold them!! Very common but still genius coz it not only saves two more buttons but also keeps the buttons to minimum number! Next to it is the Headphone Socket with Volume control (quite essential and must for personal listening)

The back panel consists of the usual analog stereo line out connector and the digital Co-Axial connector besides the optical and exclusive marantz remote in and out through which one can use Amp remote to operate this player, you have to select Via switch which one you are using (internal or external)! The main thing to notice here is the use of the gold plated (though Plating thickness is very mediocre) connectors for Audio out and Co-Axial! This is quite rare in the budget range products!

[Soundsgreat]

Review Continued...






Performance

Now coming to the main feature of this baby, The Playback!!

As said before the player was duly burnt-in and was ready to rumble!! I started of with the Scottfish Records Closer to the Music CD, what greeted me was the very solid prominent deep vocals of Allan Taylor in the song Beat Hotel Amazing song with great use of instruments ( though a minimum ),this song is more of a poetry ( contemporary ) and has a more of a talking style then singing, In the opening of the song the guitar sound is so good that you’ll feel like plucking a string yourself and throughout the song the prominent usage of guitar makes this song haunt you and beg you to listen to it again and again!

Next was the Mike Silver’s Angel in Deep Shadow, this song was also presented in much soothing way by the marantz with Mike sounding ever soulful and crisp a wafer! In the song Spanish Harlem by Rebecca Pigeon (Chesky’s Ultimate Demo Disc) the soulful vocals came out without a hint of harshness in her voice and was very sweet, the song also has some double bass pieces which were exact without sounding boomy or muddy!

Next the Sara.K ‘s If I could sing your blues, the trumpet which was 10 feet away from the Mic when recorded was extremely lively and very close, in the same song the shakers which was used in the middle had very distinct tone to each shake and this was very well put forward by the player !!

Moving on I played the XRCD2 version of the very Famous Eagles Hell Freeze Over, the track Hotel California, The guitar that opens the track was articulate and had the right timbre (though bit rough) and the Vocals of Don Henley was very clear and had nice feel, I’ve heard this song over 1000 times in the DTS DVD and Am happy to say that the CD sounded almost close to it, in the same song when the Congo drums starts the Lows were very well presented by the player with a quite a lot punch packed into it, almost sounded as good as with a Powered Sub !! By now it was evident that this a well made CDP for the budget conscious folks without much compromise on the overall quality, be it the build or sound!! though the above description holds good to the large extent, it was observed that some of the passages in some songs had a wee bit of less overall resolution and sometimes sounded very flat especially in the midrange area (very easily noticeable with the instruments like Tabla), the treble on the other hand was bit bright at times dominating the vocals!

What followed was a series of tracks from different Audiophile CD’s, the treble was very sweet ( but sometimes was a tad bit hard) and the mids had the neutral characteristics and sometimes felt too smooth ( perhaps it’s the way marantz intended it to sound) ,the bass was nice and deep with very focused timing. In the track Come Drive Down by Mark Knopfler sounded a bit different from the above! It sounded compressed and bit out of focus at times, so I tried some other Indian CD’s namely from the Jagjit Singh and the song Teri Ankhein was again had the similar story to tell, the vocals though was very prominent sound a little flat and dull the treble was bright ,

I tried the Silk Route’s Boondein the guitar there sounded a bit artificial and didn’t have the timbre that was necessary ,the treble was quite nice with smoothness ( considering the Indian harsh treble in the usual recording In mind) the vocals of Mohit Chauhan was very clean from any artifacts, also the sound had the very distinct tonality without sounding same all through !

I played the Bollywood OST Dil Vil Pyar Vyar which uses the old RD’s compositions in a new arrangement! The song O Hansini sung by Hariharan was sounding good on the player with the usual exception of bright sound which can be attributed to the fact that most Indian recordings do sound more or less the same way !! The Hariharan’s voice was silky smooth with the guitar strings.

Next came the Sufi Rock group Indian Ocean, with their unique style of composition they have made mark on the Indian and International music and are very famous internationally aswell, the song Bandein that they composed for the movie Black Friday was a very good test for the CDP’s all-round sound, as said the group is heavily influenced by Sufi and have mixed Rock genre very well!! So their songs usually have the feel of a typical Sufi with the instruments and the arrangements of a Rock song! this was indeed a good song to test as the song opens with a high pitched vocals from the lead singer and has the percussion pieces in the middle, though the tabla was little flat and needed to be a tad bit better again considering the position at which the player is placed in the market and the price you pay for these small things can be slightly ignored! Another song Ma Rewa is also one of the good songs to test as the song leans towards some heavy drumming at the almost end of the song and its pleasure to listen to those Drums with right attack and punch!!

Thought to play some other genre’s aswell, so played a Shuba Mudgal number from the OST Rain Coat, again no prices for guessing! The sound was well rounded with the vocals having the right quality and the instruments sounding to their best with the player, the song is of a semi classical and has feel of it. Overall the player’s ability to play almost all types of music without any prejudice is the USP of it!

A short comparison

I was very fortunate to have three different Amps to test the CDP on!! The Amps were Denon PMA-1055, NAD 906, and Sony TA-FA3ES from the ES stables of the Sony (which is raved for its sound quality) All the three amps sounded different but since this is not about the Amp Am not going to indulge into the greater details of how each sounded etc. But the main reason for mentioning the fact is that no matter what amp you wish to partner with this beauty, you’ll not be disappointed and will have soothing listening experience! Also the fact that in all the three set-ups all other things remained same except for the amp! And I should mention that in all the three amps the sound had the distinction was very good to listen to.

I also did comparison between this player with the other players to see how this fares, I compared it the Technics CDP with MASH (Multi Stage Noise Shaping) which was much regarded for the sound quality ,Cambridge Audio CD4 (old model, but since I had it at my disposal ). The marantz did sound bit dull when compared to the Technics but the dynamics were almost intact through-out the spectrum, it just fell short in some departments like the Vocal timbre and bass rigidity! Similar with the Cambridge but this time Marantz was the one which had the upper hand over the Cambridge! Needless to say that this Player does live up to the expectations of the average user and a critic like me! Until and unless you don’t put it under the electron microscope and start to nit-pick or find serious flaw this is one fine player for the money one pays for it!!

Conclusion

The only time you’ll ever find these small flaws mentioned above is when you compare it head to head with a much costlier and high spec player ( not that what I compared it were any super high-end but you get the Idea). It’s a common fact, as with any product and every product the Marantz also has some shortcomings, but the best part is, they are very very short and one can easily discount them!! One pure and simple reason for that, The Budget offcourse! As far as my verdict or rather opinion goes I’ll defiantly recommend it to every one and any one who’s looking for a decent player at a decent price!! But on a review point of view if I must rate, then I’d give it a 4.5 out of 5!

[suniil]

Excellent run down sreekanth, very detailed review and a lot of technical details.

Thanks for the pictuers too.

[Archie]

Hi Sreekanth, it's a nice detailed review with lot of pictures, nice writeup.....BTW what is the Indian MRP?

Regards,
Anil

[Soundsgreat]

Hi,

Thanks Sunil,Anil for liking the Review !

Anil the indian MRP is around 19K ( approx) but should be available for some discount ! if you are want it let me know !

Regards.

[Shan]

Fantastic and crisp review Sreekanth.

I also would like to know the price in MRP.

Cheers
Shan

[Sergei]

An excellent study of what makes the Marantz tick! Especially liked the shots of the internals of the Marantz, complete with the transport. A far cry from the half page reviews that are doing the day in What Hifi and other mags.