In a thread today I mentioned a brand , that I can't stand - MARANTZ ,
Do any of you have a similar dislike of a particular brand. Please don't mention an exact model as that will run into hundreds. I mean a BRAND that leaves you cold , bored , or frustrated with.
Clearaudio doesn't rock my boat either. I have heard 3 record players and could enjoy a rega far more for a tenth of the price.

how to start a war....

I've always found Marantz stuff to be overated and over hyped, not that is was bad, just that it wasn't as good as I what I would have expected when I read the hyped review.

There are certain brands I will never buy, again not because they are bad just I don't have any desire to own and that is Sony and Phillips.

In this very competitive industry where a few bad products or reliability issues will destroy your brand even before you've got time to say sorry it really begs the question of is there really anything 'bad' out there now? Maybe something won't suit our taste, we don't like the way the company is run, but does that mean the products in themselves are bad? Or is it just a question of taste? I can think of a few brands who produce the kind of sound I don't like, but again is it bad or just not me style of sound? We really need to be careful about slagging something off so easily just because when we heard it we didn't like it.

Over hyped, over rated are the biggest problem, we read something on the net which gets our juices flowing but when it comes to actually hearing it our exception of that product isn't met.

The really odd thing is that these over hyped products always seem to come up for sale soon afterwards where the ones that are actually really good their owners tend to keep. It's the ones that don't come up for sale often are the gems.

As opposed to Mark E Smith ...

No worries, lads, no war. You all know by now I just love Marantz, but I fully respect Mark's views even if I don't agree with them.

HOWEVER ...

As JSB quite correctly pointed out, we do need to distinguish some things. I expect what Mark was referring to is their more recent and current crop. Some I have heard and I must say they dismally failed to excite any sort of emotion, probably the worst thing one can say about any audio device.

The difference is that I love the Marantz which was "Designed in U.S.A., manufactured in Japan". THAT era ended in 1980, when Superscope slod off Marantz to Sony. That was the Dark Age, from which they are just recovering. Since Sony was heavily involved in audio, they just didn't know what to do with Marantz, where to position it. So Marantz spent 5 dark, dark years under Sony management, producing easy to forget models, nowhere near what they used to do. In short, Sony was milking the cow to death.

Most fortunately, in the Philips/Sony patent rights shuffle regarding the CD format, Marantz once again changed owners, and moved their world headquarters to Eindhoven, Holland. As opposed to Sony, Philips was looking to get out of audio altogether, so to them, Marantz was a viable brand. And, by 1990, the comeback came, lo and behold!, where else but in the CD arena. I expect even those of you who don't care about Marantz will remember the 53 and 63 models, which quite deservedly ruled supreme 1993-1996. They were, simply put, the best to be had in their respective price classes. I owned the CD 63, and I think I made a serious mistake when I sold it off.

Then Marantz bought its way out from under Philips' wing, went a bit out on its own, and today, it is an equal partner in the joint stock company D&M Holdings (Denon & Marantz). However, in the meanwhile, everything moved to their manufacturing facilities in Japan, so now, Marantz is a 100% Japanese company. A far cry from 1980, when it was a 100% US company.

And thus quite naturally, its produces according to Japanese standards and views. Like soooooooooo many others. And like them, they have mostly all right products, with a few little gems here and there.

But this has absolutely nothing to do with the original company. Just take a look at the schematics of my DC 1152 and compare them to those used today - quite literally a step down in scale. And to me, it's a poor consolation that practically everybody else has gone EXACTLY the same way, with a few odd exceptions here and there (e.g. Harman/Kardon's new line of integrated amps sounds very good indeed, and the bigger model, costing 1,600 euros locally for 2x150W/8 Ohms in my view sounds like there's a zero missing in its price tag, and I kid you not).

So, I can understand Mark, and I even mostly agree with him. I only wish he and you had the chance to hear one or more of those models from their heyday, properly restored - then you'd realize just how right I am about them and the bygone days, when manufacturers treated audio much more seriously.

I bought the Marantz CD63 and to be honest I really liked it, but the big cruncher is that a Micromega Stage 1 absolutely trounced it, if anyone deserved the status of getting digital to sound right then Micromega are top of the list, just a shame about reliability and how they completely ignored the problem.

I believe my brother still has the Marantz CD63 not sure if it's still going as I believe he said it was skipping a few years ago. I also had the CD48 which was very good for about 180pound a few years later.

The problem I found was the over hype of the CD63SE it just didn't have that spark to me, again I found the Arcams and the Micromega of the time to be much better. In fact to my ears one of the best players are far better sounding than the Marantz was the Rotel 970, that really was a stunner, it just sounded so good but it hardly got a look in due to the presses insistence over how good the Marantz was, it went to new heights with the KI version which again I didn't think was nowhere near as good as what the Micromegas were.

My old Marantz CD63 MKII K1 signature still never misses a beat and was one of my best buys ... needs to be carefully partnered though

Primare, I'd rather watch paint dry.

Not heard any I must admit but I have read about them......as bad as that Timbo ??

I was gone keep out of this, but as people seem to be avoiding bloodshed (well so far), I'll stick my tactful ( ) oar in. Not in terms of brands, but in terms of geographic area's.

I have heard very little from the good old US of A that would make me reach for my credit card,

The italians make good food, and good hi-fi.

We (the UK) are getting better at food , and (big trumpet fanfare), are still good at hi-fi, even if lumps of it are now Chinese.

The French also make good food, and treat hi-fi like life. It sounds good a lot of the time, but when you point out its flaws, it gets a gallic shrug, and bugger all happens.

The scandinavians have tranquil lakes, cool rivers and streams, and even cooler, laid back hi-fi, and it does nothing for me at all.

I can not really comment on NZ or Oz, cos I heard very little of it.

I will now take my tongue out of my cheek, and wait for the comments.

love and kisses in advance

Primare were good looks, good build with a grey, dull and lifeless sound. A huge disappointment.