A Love Affair: Vintage Marantz

Growing up the son of an analog electrical engineer had its perks but I did not learn to truly appreciate them from the get-go.  I would often find myself roaming the seemingly infinite isles of Silicon Valley "junk stores"; large warehouses filled with electronic odds & ends that had either been scrapped or sold by defunct companies.  My father would drag me to these stores & I would typically pace around the store impatiently, waiting on my father to finish his routine scans of the mountains of electronic components.  At such a young age as I was then, it was difficult for me to find any pleasure in such a venture & I quickly learned to dread this seemingly unavoidable errand.  As the years went on, my father's hunt for rare electronic equipment led us beyond the fringe of the stereotypical Silicon Valley scene & into a darker if not edgier side of the industry.  

The junk stores we visited became more junk & less store & it was not long before my father had graduated us to electronic flea markets.  These flea markets were unlike anything I had ever seen; enormous gatherings of analog aficionados searching for some rare VU meter or oscilloscope that they could take apart & gawk at.  It was at one such flea market where I was first introduced to Marantz.  I remember walking with my father; casually probing through vendors' boxes & counting the minutes till we could leave, when out of the corner of my eye, I caught the glimmer of a Marantz 2270's chrome faceplate.  The receiver was plugged in, an intelligent choice by the vendor, as a vintage Marantz is ever more beautiful & enticing when its electric blue light is glowing in stark contrast with cool metallic veneer.  The 2270 was in excellent condition & it was immediately evident that this particular Marantz had been loved by its previous owner(s).  Having no idea what I was looking at, I called my father over, who immediately smiled & hovered over me, inspecting the 2270.  He turned a few knobs & pots, checked the balance knob, turned the unit on & off, & smiled when he realized how fascinated I was by the object.  Here was his son, a staunch protestor of anything even resembling an electronics store, head over heels for his first electronic crush.  My father was undoubtedly wise enough to realize that despite his son having no idea what a Marantz was, the unit's aesthetic appearance was what had initially grabbed my attention.  My father patiently explained what a receiver was & how it differed from a boom box or any other kind of stereo equipment I was familiar with at the time.  The vendor, upon request, was even nice enough to hook the 2270 up to a pair of old speakers.  Despite not being particularly interested in music at the time, I knew that I had to have a Marantz receiver.  Upon checking the price tag of the unit, my hopes dwindled & I retracted into a deep melancholy, knowing my father would not buy me such an exorbitantly priced piece of audio equipment.    

The years went by & electronic flea markets with my old man came & went, & every now & then I would find one.  Some were in terrible condition, others practically perfect, but no matter what their condition I would always gravitate towards them.  They seemed impossible to miss, with their endless array of switches & knobs that served some purpose beyond me.  It did not matter, what mattered was that there were switches; switches that required turning & adjusting & checking.  I loved the metallic clicks they would make when depressed or turned.  No piece of modern electronic equipment I had ever seen looked like a vintage Marantz.  

It was not until after my father passed away that I acquired my first Marantz, a 2220.  I had learned the benefits of vintage audio equipment prior to making the purchase & was now fully confident with my decision to finally buy my dream audio receiver.  I purchased the unit from a seller on Ebay, whose reputation preceded him.  His entire business rested on his ability to fully restore these fantastic machines to their original state.  The unit arrived at my apartment, & after weeks of waiting impatiently, I stood around with my roommates as we carefully dissected the box containing the unit.  I was ecstatic to see that the seller had even included the original Marantz cardboard box, from 1973.  The receiver was everything I could have hoped for, absolutely beautiful & free of scratches or dents. I hooked the Marantz up to my Definitive Technology BP 7004 towers, & after weeks of serious listening I truly began to appreciate the Marantz's capabilities.  

The Marantz sounded unlike anything I had ever heard.  Up to that point, I had learned the sound differences that come between listening to music piped through an analog unit versus a digital one, but nothing could have prepared me for the warmth that Marantz brought to my music.  Everything sounded brighter & thicker & I quickly resorted to researching the issue; I wanted some sort of evidence, anything to validate my epiphany & give substance to what I thought I heard coming from this stunning piece of antiquated machinery.  After some extensive web browsing, I learned that old Marantz audio receivers are famous for their warm/buttery sound, my opinion was validated, &  I was now safe to be totally & completely...hooked.  Here was a unit that blended the best of both worlds, cosmetic beauty & beautiful sound.  For the rest of the school year I took pleasure in throwing all kinds of music at that Marantz, everything from jazz to rap.  While everything sounded fabulous, what really stood out, was the Marantz's playback of vinyl records.  Nothing I had ever heard compared to the fidelity of a vintage Marantz playing a vinyl record.  Whether laying on my bed with the volume cranked or sitting in a chair with my headphones plugged in, the music came to life off my records.  Louis Armstrong's voice crooned, Miles Davis' trumpet soared, & Springsteen's voice sounded throatier & more present.  

This summer I have been fortunate enough to acquire three more Marantz pieces, all of which have sentimental value to me.  A close friend of my father's, himself a vintage Marantz collector, gave me two excellent units.  One, a small 1030 Marantz Amplifier, & the other a monster 2325 Marantz Receiver.  The 2325 will return with me to college so as to retire the 2220 for the time being.  The 2325, with all of its 70lbs & 125 watts per channel, will certainly make a dent in my neighbor's sleeping patterns.  The last piece, which I inherited after my father's death, is a Marantz 10b tuner.  This a particularly special piece because it belonged to my father, but also because of its significance to Marantz's history.  Marantz was started by Saul Marantz, who had a vision that closely resembles Apple's current philosophy.  His aim was to make top of the line equipment that was as beautiful & attractive to the eye as it was efficient & technically superior.  Marantz's success as a privately owned company was short lived however...all due to the 10b.

Saul Marantz was eager to make the best tuner ever made & the result was the 10b.  It was a fantastic piece of equipment & its specifications at the time were enough to make any audiophile drool.  But what truly made the 10b significant, was its inclusion of a small onboard oscilloscope that displayed a wavelength representation of the incoming radio signal.  Marantz explained the scope as a fine-tuning instrument that served to further enhance/tune the incoming signal & thus allow for better audio quality. In reality, the scope was fairly arbitrary & it would probably be generous to say it even moderately affected audio quality... but it sure as hell was cool to look at.  Unfortunately, the 10b was also extremely expensive to make & back in the late 1960s, demanded a whopping $600.  The 10b effectively bankrupted Marantz & ended the company's run as an independent entity.  Shortly thereafter, Marantz was purchased by SuperScope.  Today, the 10b tuner has reached a cult level status of popularity & is widely sought after by collectors.  It represents the pinnacle of the original Marantz corporation prior to their purchase by SuperScope, & for many is one of the most beautiful & interesting tuners ever made.  

There is a certain approach to design that defines every decade, & for me it is the years long passed that truly perfected the approach.  Whether it be the utilitarian & intricate face of a 1960s luxury watch, the wooden paneling on the dashboard of a classic Mercedes, or the glowing blue light of a Marantz receiver, the attention to every possible detail & the overall solidity of products from yesteryear is long gone.  It has been replaced by cheap & affordable plastics & the ones & zeroes of a digital age.  Technology may have become more efficient & all together more advanced, but it has certainly become uglier.  A lack of style & taste has paved the road for cheaper operating costs in the audio industry, & the results are black monoliths that bare no resemblance to their superior ancestors.  For me, Marantz is the end of line, the pinnace of an era that is no more.  My affinity for these instruments remains strong, & how could it not?  Marantz combined beauty & tonal quality unlike any of its competitors.  They strove to please the ears as well as the eyes & they innovated in a market that has always been over-saturated; truly, American design at its best.