Hello Everyone,
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Marantz CD-63 stereo CD player.
In this review, all measurements you're about to see were not performed by me but a friend whom I taught how to, and who's using my test files the same way I do. The only major difference is that his capturing interface is a Focusrite Gen3 2i2, while I use a Motu Ultralite Mk5, and it's good enough to capture old CD Player performances.
So basically, I'm just the messenger here, but it's also the proof we/you can replicate the same at home to compare your CD player with minimum requirements, see how to here.
Marantz CD-63/2 - Presentation
This is the "second" version of the CD-63 which was released in 1993. The initial CD-63 was of the first CD players to be released in 1982, so we are talking of a different beast here.
Marantz later released an MKII and a KI version of the same player. If some of you have those, the comparison would be interesting.
The "standard" CD-63/2 was a member of a small family, with the CD-43 and CD-53, and so topping that range. All versions (also including the subsequent MKII and KI by the way) used an NPC oversampling/converter SM5872BS and a Philips mech, the CDM 12.1.
The back shows us the essential, and we like to see digital outputs which were available only with the CD-63:
Inside, we find a copper plated (or insulated, I'm not sure) chassis and a big card managing everything, from servo to conversion and analog output via Marantz HDAM of the time:
Out of the three CD-43/53/63, only the CD-63 was benefiting from the now famous HDAM output stage from Marantz, as we can tell from the service manual:
Remote control was reserved to CD-53 and CD-63 while phones output was available with all of them.
Marantz CD-63/2 - Measurements
The below measurements are aligned with those that I described on the Onkyo C-733 review. So it allows direct comparison.
The Marantz CD-63/2 outputs 2Vrsm from its RCA. There was a slight channel imbalance 0.1dB (this is good). The RCA outputs are non-inverting.
Here you go with an improved 1kHz test tone, and that is a non-standard 999.91Hz sine @0dBFS (undithered) from the test CD (RCA out), which has the very interesting property to somehow self-dither and therefore allow a higher precision of distortion and noise analysis:
Right and left channels are shown and are almost identical, it's not so often. THD sits at -92dB and that is good, even if not best in class. The additional "good news" here is that it's mainly H2 dominated and that one is more difficult to hear because the masking effect is more pronounced (than it would have been with H5 for instance).
With full scale signal, the calculated SNR is still good, even though not best in class, again. The SINAD and ENOB loses nearly a bit because of low level correlated noise, too bad.
Now I'm used to provide you with the same view at -6dBFS (still 999.91Hz undithered tone):
And it's an additional good news to see reduced distortion here (-101dB) relative to signal.
Less good is what happens below 1kHz and that I'm sure you already spotted. Let's zoom:
The power supply spuriae at the AC wall frequency (50Hz Europe) with related harmonics are relatively low in amplitude (below -110dBr), unlikely to be heard. That said, we see other unknown (to me) source of noise, especially these two spikes at respectively 175Hz and 217Hz. Some of you might have an explanation.
Let's continue with Bandwidth:
We see the 0.1dB channel imbalance, and the ringing at the end of the view is related to the oversampling filter. We have -0.3dB at 20kHz, within the specs of the converter.
The filter response is very close to the theoretical response published in the SM5872A datasheet (linear frequency scale below):
Let's stay on the oversampling filter with that wider band response view below:
The attenuation, out of band, is relatively low, and documented at minimum 53dB in the SM5872A datasheet which is what we see here. This view is an overlay with the standard AES test (18kHz + 20kHz) which shows relatively high IMD distortion, because of poor filter attenuation. We see high level aliases of 18k+20k at 26k+24k, etc...
Multitone (1/10 decade) shows a happy CD player, not having issue to clear 16bits of data (L+R channels shown):
Next with the jitter test:
This is an overlay of the digital test file (red) and the RCA outputs of the Marantz CD-63 (blue). This is a bit disappointing compared to other CD players, but will remain a challenge to hear...
Started with the Teac VRDS-20 review, and on your request + support to get it done (more here), I'm adding now an "intersample-overs" test which intends to identify the behavior of the digital filtering and DAC when it come to process near clipping signals. Because of the oversampling, there might be interpolated data that go above 0dBFS and would saturate (clip) the DAC and therefore the output. And this effect shows through distorsion (THD+N measurement up to 96kHz):
I kept some references and I will keep the same for other reviews, so you can quickly compare. The results of the Marantz CD-63/2 mean the oversampling filter has no headroom to handle intersample-overs and is therefore clipping where it's most likely to happen. The Yamaha CD-1 shines here because it's old enough not to have an oversampling filter.
Other measurements (not shown):
Last but not least, I like to have a look a the THD vs Frequency when using a -12dBFS signal. This has proven to me to be a key differentiator, especially when I'm reviewing an old CD Player using R2R conversion. Here are the results with the Marantz (Left and Right analog Channels shown):
:
This is not bad but we see an unusual high level of distortion at lower frequencies. The plot is at 1kHz were we see 4-5dB more distortion than the Onkyo, and that is really reasonable (-94dB relative to the signal).
Conclusions
First, sorry, no review of the digital outputs simply because the measuring interface (Focusrite 2i2 Gen3) does not have digital inputs.
With these results and even considering the period, we are in the mid-range performances. Not much of a concern, though, about the potential consequences when listening to music, except with intersample-overs.
Now, to be honest, I'd love to put my hands on an MKII and/or KI versions to see the differences. But from the above and compared to the JVC XL-335 from the same period, there was room for improvements... On a conversion and especially oversampling filtering perspective, it will remain the same since we are already there per the datasheet. Same with distortion, by the way (said to be 0.002% best case, that is -94dB @0dBFS, again exactly what we get here).
Low level correlated and random noise can certainly be improved, maybe jitter too. I suppose this is where Marantz and Ken made a difference(?).
I hope you enjoyed this review. It was an opportunity to show you that we can now share reviews using not so expensive interfaces for the measurements, and the results are directly comparable.
Cheers
--------
Flo
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Marantz CD-63 stereo CD player.
In this review, all measurements you're about to see were not performed by me but a friend whom I taught how to, and who's using my test files the same way I do. The only major difference is that his capturing interface is a Focusrite Gen3 2i2, while I use a Motu Ultralite Mk5, and it's good enough to capture old CD Player performances.
So basically, I'm just the messenger here, but it's also the proof we/you can replicate the same at home to compare your CD player with minimum requirements, see how to here.
Marantz CD-63/2 - Presentation
This is the "second" version of the CD-63 which was released in 1993. The initial CD-63 was of the first CD players to be released in 1982, so we are talking of a different beast here.
Marantz later released an MKII and a KI version of the same player. If some of you have those, the comparison would be interesting.
The "standard" CD-63/2 was a member of a small family, with the CD-43 and CD-53, and so topping that range. All versions (also including the subsequent MKII and KI by the way) used an NPC oversampling/converter SM5872BS and a Philips mech, the CDM 12.1.
The back shows us the essential, and we like to see digital outputs which were available only with the CD-63:
Inside, we find a copper plated (or insulated, I'm not sure) chassis and a big card managing everything, from servo to conversion and analog output via Marantz HDAM of the time:
Out of the three CD-43/53/63, only the CD-63 was benefiting from the now famous HDAM output stage from Marantz, as we can tell from the service manual:
Remote control was reserved to CD-53 and CD-63 while phones output was available with all of them.
Marantz CD-63/2 - Measurements
The below measurements are aligned with those that I described on the Onkyo C-733 review. So it allows direct comparison.
The Marantz CD-63/2 outputs 2Vrsm from its RCA. There was a slight channel imbalance 0.1dB (this is good). The RCA outputs are non-inverting.
Here you go with an improved 1kHz test tone, and that is a non-standard 999.91Hz sine @0dBFS (undithered) from the test CD (RCA out), which has the very interesting property to somehow self-dither and therefore allow a higher precision of distortion and noise analysis:
Right and left channels are shown and are almost identical, it's not so often. THD sits at -92dB and that is good, even if not best in class. The additional "good news" here is that it's mainly H2 dominated and that one is more difficult to hear because the masking effect is more pronounced (than it would have been with H5 for instance).
With full scale signal, the calculated SNR is still good, even though not best in class, again. The SINAD and ENOB loses nearly a bit because of low level correlated noise, too bad.
Now I'm used to provide you with the same view at -6dBFS (still 999.91Hz undithered tone):
And it's an additional good news to see reduced distortion here (-101dB) relative to signal.
Less good is what happens below 1kHz and that I'm sure you already spotted. Let's zoom:
The power supply spuriae at the AC wall frequency (50Hz Europe) with related harmonics are relatively low in amplitude (below -110dBr), unlikely to be heard. That said, we see other unknown (to me) source of noise, especially these two spikes at respectively 175Hz and 217Hz. Some of you might have an explanation.
Let's continue with Bandwidth:
We see the 0.1dB channel imbalance, and the ringing at the end of the view is related to the oversampling filter. We have -0.3dB at 20kHz, within the specs of the converter.
The filter response is very close to the theoretical response published in the SM5872A datasheet (linear frequency scale below):
Let's stay on the oversampling filter with that wider band response view below:
The attenuation, out of band, is relatively low, and documented at minimum 53dB in the SM5872A datasheet which is what we see here. This view is an overlay with the standard AES test (18kHz + 20kHz) which shows relatively high IMD distortion, because of poor filter attenuation. We see high level aliases of 18k+20k at 26k+24k, etc...
Multitone (1/10 decade) shows a happy CD player, not having issue to clear 16bits of data (L+R channels shown):
Next with the jitter test:
This is an overlay of the digital test file (red) and the RCA outputs of the Marantz CD-63 (blue). This is a bit disappointing compared to other CD players, but will remain a challenge to hear...
Started with the Teac VRDS-20 review, and on your request + support to get it done (more here), I'm adding now an "intersample-overs" test which intends to identify the behavior of the digital filtering and DAC when it come to process near clipping signals. Because of the oversampling, there might be interpolated data that go above 0dBFS and would saturate (clip) the DAC and therefore the output. And this effect shows through distorsion (THD+N measurement up to 96kHz):
| Intersample-overs tests Bandwidth of the THD+N measurements is 20Hz - 96kHz | 5512.5 Hz sine, Peak = +0.69dBFS | 7350 Hz sine, Peak = +1.25dBFS | 11025 Hz sine, Peak = +3.0dBFS |
| Teac VRDS-20 | NA | NA | -17.6dB |
| Yamaha CD-1 (Non-Oversampling CD Player) | -86.4dB | -84.9dB | -78.3dB |
| Onkyo C-733 | -88.3dB | -40.4dB | -21.2dB |
| Marantz CD-63/2 | -34.9dB | -28.9dB | -18.9dB |
I kept some references and I will keep the same for other reviews, so you can quickly compare. The results of the Marantz CD-63/2 mean the oversampling filter has no headroom to handle intersample-overs and is therefore clipping where it's most likely to happen. The Yamaha CD-1 shines here because it's old enough not to have an oversampling filter.
Other measurements (not shown):
- IMD AES-17 DFD "Analog" (18kHz & 20kHz 1:1) : -61dB
- Dynamic Range : 96.5dB
- Crosstalk: -106dB (100Hz) -86dB (1kHz), -67dB (10kHz)
- Pitch Error : 19'996.86Hz (19'997Hz requested) ie -0.0007%
Last but not least, I like to have a look a the THD vs Frequency when using a -12dBFS signal. This has proven to me to be a key differentiator, especially when I'm reviewing an old CD Player using R2R conversion. Here are the results with the Marantz (Left and Right analog Channels shown):
This is not bad but we see an unusual high level of distortion at lower frequencies. The plot is at 1kHz were we see 4-5dB more distortion than the Onkyo, and that is really reasonable (-94dB relative to the signal).
Conclusions
First, sorry, no review of the digital outputs simply because the measuring interface (Focusrite 2i2 Gen3) does not have digital inputs.
With these results and even considering the period, we are in the mid-range performances. Not much of a concern, though, about the potential consequences when listening to music, except with intersample-overs.
Now, to be honest, I'd love to put my hands on an MKII and/or KI versions to see the differences. But from the above and compared to the JVC XL-335 from the same period, there was room for improvements... On a conversion and especially oversampling filtering perspective, it will remain the same since we are already there per the datasheet. Same with distortion, by the way (said to be 0.002% best case, that is -94dB @0dBFS, again exactly what we get here).
Low level correlated and random noise can certainly be improved, maybe jitter too. I suppose this is where Marantz and Ken made a difference(?).
I hope you enjoyed this review. It was an opportunity to show you that we can now share reviews using not so expensive interfaces for the measurements, and the results are directly comparable.
Cheers
--------
Flo
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