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Marantz 22XX: Brutal honesty of its phono & preamp stage wanted!

208.0.115.164

Posted by Socrates on April 9, 2007 at 16:30:33

I grew up listening to my dad's Marantz 2245 receiver, his vinyl and big headphones, and still have fond memories of spinning Zepplin and Tull albums with that eerie blue glow!

I'm still in my 20's and at that have a system build for a completely different era with bleeding edge hifi tech. My system is composed of Spectron Musician III, Ice and Hypex digital amps fed directly from a Benchmark Dac-1 USB with all songs on my hard drive, with huge Von Schweikerts, so my ears are well attuned to modern hifi sound.

However, I've heard glorious sounding vinyl in plenty of systems and would really like to get a taste. Realizing I'd never likely own more then a few dozen LP's, spending a grand or two on a phono pre and table doesn't make sense to me at all to match the quality of my other gear, yet I do still have very fond memories of the Marantz sound and was looking for brutally honest appraisals of its phono and preamp sections compared to modern, good quality pieces.

I've owned a few Musical Fidelity pieces I liked a lot for the preamp section (A3cr, A3.2cr), and was thinking of buying another as I could use it for TV sound as well and use the phono section for an entry level Rega 3 or Music Hall 5 table, but, still, if the $175-275ish Marantz 2245 or 2270, etc, are close I'd rather go vintage! For giggles, i put a vintage Onkyo in my main system as a volume control at it didn't sound bad at all. Not as good as direct by any means, nor close to my Cary Tube preamp, being rolled and veiled and having loose bass, but not offensive, and all subtractive in its sins, so maybe there is hope?

Worse case the marantz ends up in my office as an over the top pre for my tiny chip amps, or rear surround power for the theater, but I'd like to hear some opinions on these 70's marantz pieces compared to modern gear, and any suggestions for phono preamp setups for $700 or less that would be very much appreciated! Thanks much in advance!

PS: Dad tells me I'll have to pry the 2245 out of his cold, dead fingers :)

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