Hello Everyone,
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Marantz CD Player and Transport.
Marantz CD-80 - Presentation
This an old qualitative CD Player from 1989, and clone of the Philips CD-80. It was relatively expensive and its weight of 15kg (33lbs) was a statement alone. It uses the famous Philips DAC TDA1541A in its crowned version "S1" which I already reviewed in the Revox B 226-S.
To go with this DAC, we have the usual digital filter SAA7220, and the drive is a Philips one too, the CD1-MKII.
I got the opportunity to test this player as I stopped at a friend's house on my way to holidays and he suggested me to test this one. I had to say yes, of course.
On the back, we get two RCA outputs (one variable) and two digital SPDIF outputs:
Th optical output can be turned on or off, as with some other players of the time. I don't know what for, certainly not to make an audible difference in the analog outputs, I tell you. Plus, the switivh being on the back makes it cumbersome to use.
I think this player is really a nice looking device, and I like a lot the side panels which I suspect contribute to the massive weight:
The published specs were the below (extracted from the Service Manual):
Here are few pictures of the inside, after having removed the side panels that weight 1.5kg each, and the beautiful aluminium cover
We get a massive power transformer, the full metal Philips CMD1-MkII can be seen in front of it. Ont he right, we get a big nice board for the conversion. The TDA1541A-S1 is a the front of the player, that means far away from the RCA outputs, but that is because there's a complex output stage to fit in, including a variable one.
This is a close-up of the crowned king TDA1541A-S1 and its usual accompanying digital filter, the SAA7220P/B:
This is another legend, the immortal full metal swing arm Philips CDM1-MkII:
The busy analog output stage:
The drive is very fast, as you can expect from these old gears, but with the age, some buttons are less responsive, they would need a clean up. Other than that, nothing to say, this is a cool CD player and it plays a lovely music.
Marantz CD-80 - Measurements (RCA out)
All measurements performed with an E1DA Cosmos ADCiso (grade 0), and the Cosmos Scaler (100kohms from unbalanced input) for analog outputs, and a Motu UltraLite Mk5 for digital.
I am now consistent with my specific measurements for CD Players, as I described them in the post “More than we hear”, and as I reported them for the Onkyo C-733 review. Over time, this will help comparing the devices I reviewed.
The Marantz CD-80 outputs 1.83Vrms, a little less than the standard 2Vrms. So, when directly compared with another CD Player that output 2Vrms, it might not shine, unless the operator adjusts the level. The two channels were well balanced with a small 0.07dB difference, which is very good. The unbalanced outputs are non-inverting.
----
As usual, let's start with my standard 999.91Hz sine @0dBFS (without dither) from the Test CD (RCA out):
The two channels are shown and only one is evaluated in the dashboard, but both have very close performances. The THD is very low (-105.7dBr) with this full scale test tone, and that is very good. There's a little more noise than usual, and this is due to the Philips R2R DAC. This TDA1541-S1 was selected based on linearity criteria for each of the 16 bits, but they still had a little more than the competition, such as BurrBrown or Analogue Devices who were using laser trimming techniques for better linearity.
The calculated SNR in presence of that full scale test tone is quite good too, only few dBs are missing to make it perfect. I'd say this is very good for a very old R2R converter.
Let's have a look at the same 999.91Hz @-6dBFS (no dither):
Yes, the THD has increased relative to the signal, which is typical of that TDA and what I measured multiple times. SNR has improved a little (90.1dB+6dB=96.1dB) which demonstrates that the player generates a bit of noise with high level test tones.
----
I think you saw a silent CD Player without power supply related frequencies (zoomed view from 20Hz zo 1kHz, and again from the 999.91Hz @0dBFS test tone without dither):
There are some spikes, not related to PS (50Hz in Europe) and I don't know their origin but I saw something similar with the Revox B 226-S, so I guess this is due to the DAC, or maybe its oversampling filter.
----
Next is the bandwidth:
This is very flat but we get the typical ringing of the SAA7220, due to its relative low performance. And let's have a look at the job of that oversampling filter:
Again, this is of course similar to what I measured with the Revox, lots of ringing out of the audio band. The attenuation is only -50db to -70dB, and some other oversampling filters of the time were doing better (have a look at the Sony CDP-337ESD, using the Philips TDA1541A but with a better Sony filter).
This is an overlay of white noise and the IVM AES 18kHz & 20kHz test. You can see that the alias of the 20kHz tone is attenuated by only -40dB because the filter is not fully active yer.
----
Let's have a look at the multitone test that a lot of you like very much:
Besides few spikes, this is a very good trace showing that this conversion has nearly 0 distorsion with multiple tones. This is again similar to what I previously measured from the Revox B 226-S.
----
Let's move on to the jitter test:
The red trace is from the digital output and is "perfect", the blue trace is from the RCA output. This is minimum and negligible disruption, even if Sony achieved better at the time. Note the random noise floor which is very low, going below the scale I use for that view, and that's a good indication for the Marantz, meaning its analog output is very silent.
---
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 will keep the same for other reviews, so you can quickly compare. The results of the Marantz mean that it has 1dB of headroom in its oversampling filter. I've put in the table the results of the Revox B 126 and B 226-S that use the same SAA7220, and you can see the results are nearly identical.
----
Let's continue with the good old 3DC measurement that Stereophile was often using as a proof of low noise DAC. It is from an undithered 997Hz sine at -90.31dBFS. With 16bits, the signal should appear (on a scope) as the 3DC levels of the smallest symmetrical sign magnitude digital signal:
Well, the result is not bad, only that it's not at the correct amplitude, since instead of being @-90.31dBFS, I see it at -93.71dBFS. That is a massive deviation from linearity which is the true weakness of this DAC. And despite the fact that this Marantz is very silent, it does not save the DAC from lack of linearity. In fact, at -80dBFS, the Marantz is already off track by 0.7dB.
----
Other measurements (not shown):
The pitch error test shows a clock deviation of 32.5ppm, which is reasonable, even if other players did better at the time.
----
Last and not least, I like to run a THD vs Frequency sweep at -12dBFS as it shows how the conversion has evolved over time. I am currently using the beta version of REW and I discovered that this sweep gives better and more reliable results than before. I overlaid the results of the two channels of the Marantz with one from the Sony CDP-3337ESD using two standard TDA1541A (non-S1) in staggered mode by Sony, and a 1bit Sony player, the CDP-X333ES:
The 1bit beats them, reason why everybody went for that. The Crowned TDA1541A version does not do better that the dual standard TDA1541A.
Marantz CD-80 - Measurements (Digital Optical Output)
I've seen several of you reviewing CD players using their digital outputs, in case the results could be improved from an external DAC.
So let's go with the 999.91Hz @0dBFS:
This is as good as it gets from digital output. The 3DC level test (997Hz @0dBFS) shows no modification either:
But I think that from now on, I will just use the intersample overs test at 5512.50Hz, with a phase shift of 67.5°, like I did for the TASCAM CD-200 review. This signal generates an overshoot of +0.69dB and so if the signal would be modified before being sent, it would show either a reduction of amplitude or we'd see some sort of saturation. So here we go, the below is a comparison between the WAV File directly processed by the PC, and when played by the Marantz via the Optical out:
The two traces are the same, and we get the same "over" of +0.69dBFS. To me, this is as close as "bit perfect" digital output as we can get.
Marantz CD-80 - Testing the drive
What would be good measurements if the drive would not properly read a slightly scratched CD, or one that was created at the limits of the norm? The below tests reply to these questions.
The drive was able to consistently continue playing, without generating typical digital clicks, with dropouts of up to 2.4mm. The interpolation effect remained hidden to my ears when it kicked-off but failed to maintain a constant flow beyond 2.4mm as it generated typical clicks and was dropping few seconds here and there, but it never stopped reading the disc! The Marantz had no issue with variable linear velocity and/or track pitch, but I saw some interpolation effect in HF detection with the lowest asymmetry (that could be caused by a dirty lens).
These results are very good for the time and even by today's standards. These Philips CDM drives were really exceptional.
Conclusion
You now know much more about this old Marantz CD player which still sells for a high price. And well, it's not because of the quality of its conversion which was already beaten by many others at the time.
It still is a very good CD Player (I can't hear any issue), and also a "perfect" transport. The speed of the CDM1 is quite addictive.
Cheers
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Marantz CD Player and Transport.
Marantz CD-80 - Presentation
This an old qualitative CD Player from 1989, and clone of the Philips CD-80. It was relatively expensive and its weight of 15kg (33lbs) was a statement alone. It uses the famous Philips DAC TDA1541A in its crowned version "S1" which I already reviewed in the Revox B 226-S.
To go with this DAC, we have the usual digital filter SAA7220, and the drive is a Philips one too, the CD1-MKII.
I got the opportunity to test this player as I stopped at a friend's house on my way to holidays and he suggested me to test this one. I had to say yes, of course.
On the back, we get two RCA outputs (one variable) and two digital SPDIF outputs:
Th optical output can be turned on or off, as with some other players of the time. I don't know what for, certainly not to make an audible difference in the analog outputs, I tell you. Plus, the switivh being on the back makes it cumbersome to use.
I think this player is really a nice looking device, and I like a lot the side panels which I suspect contribute to the massive weight:
The published specs were the below (extracted from the Service Manual):
Here are few pictures of the inside, after having removed the side panels that weight 1.5kg each, and the beautiful aluminium cover
We get a massive power transformer, the full metal Philips CMD1-MkII can be seen in front of it. Ont he right, we get a big nice board for the conversion. The TDA1541A-S1 is a the front of the player, that means far away from the RCA outputs, but that is because there's a complex output stage to fit in, including a variable one.
This is a close-up of the crowned king TDA1541A-S1 and its usual accompanying digital filter, the SAA7220P/B:
This is another legend, the immortal full metal swing arm Philips CDM1-MkII:
The busy analog output stage:
The drive is very fast, as you can expect from these old gears, but with the age, some buttons are less responsive, they would need a clean up. Other than that, nothing to say, this is a cool CD player and it plays a lovely music.
Marantz CD-80 - Measurements (RCA out)
All measurements performed with an E1DA Cosmos ADCiso (grade 0), and the Cosmos Scaler (100kohms from unbalanced input) for analog outputs, and a Motu UltraLite Mk5 for digital.
I am now consistent with my specific measurements for CD Players, as I described them in the post “More than we hear”, and as I reported them for the Onkyo C-733 review. Over time, this will help comparing the devices I reviewed.
The Marantz CD-80 outputs 1.83Vrms, a little less than the standard 2Vrms. So, when directly compared with another CD Player that output 2Vrms, it might not shine, unless the operator adjusts the level. The two channels were well balanced with a small 0.07dB difference, which is very good. The unbalanced outputs are non-inverting.
----
As usual, let's start with my standard 999.91Hz sine @0dBFS (without dither) from the Test CD (RCA out):
The two channels are shown and only one is evaluated in the dashboard, but both have very close performances. The THD is very low (-105.7dBr) with this full scale test tone, and that is very good. There's a little more noise than usual, and this is due to the Philips R2R DAC. This TDA1541-S1 was selected based on linearity criteria for each of the 16 bits, but they still had a little more than the competition, such as BurrBrown or Analogue Devices who were using laser trimming techniques for better linearity.
The calculated SNR in presence of that full scale test tone is quite good too, only few dBs are missing to make it perfect. I'd say this is very good for a very old R2R converter.
Let's have a look at the same 999.91Hz @-6dBFS (no dither):
Yes, the THD has increased relative to the signal, which is typical of that TDA and what I measured multiple times. SNR has improved a little (90.1dB+6dB=96.1dB) which demonstrates that the player generates a bit of noise with high level test tones.
----
I think you saw a silent CD Player without power supply related frequencies (zoomed view from 20Hz zo 1kHz, and again from the 999.91Hz @0dBFS test tone without dither):
There are some spikes, not related to PS (50Hz in Europe) and I don't know their origin but I saw something similar with the Revox B 226-S, so I guess this is due to the DAC, or maybe its oversampling filter.
----
Next is the bandwidth:
This is very flat but we get the typical ringing of the SAA7220, due to its relative low performance. And let's have a look at the job of that oversampling filter:
Again, this is of course similar to what I measured with the Revox, lots of ringing out of the audio band. The attenuation is only -50db to -70dB, and some other oversampling filters of the time were doing better (have a look at the Sony CDP-337ESD, using the Philips TDA1541A but with a better Sony filter).
This is an overlay of white noise and the IVM AES 18kHz & 20kHz test. You can see that the alias of the 20kHz tone is attenuated by only -40dB because the filter is not fully active yer.
----
Let's have a look at the multitone test that a lot of you like very much:
Besides few spikes, this is a very good trace showing that this conversion has nearly 0 distorsion with multiple tones. This is again similar to what I previously measured from the Revox B 226-S.
----
Let's move on to the jitter test:
The red trace is from the digital output and is "perfect", the blue trace is from the RCA output. This is minimum and negligible disruption, even if Sony achieved better at the time. Note the random noise floor which is very low, going below the scale I use for that view, and that's a good indication for the Marantz, meaning its analog output is very silent.
---
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 | -30.7dB | -26.6dB | -17.6dB |
| Yamaha CD-1 | -84.6dB | -84.9dB | -78.1dB |
| Denon DCD-900NE | -34.2dB | -27.1dB | -19.1dB |
| Denon DCD-SA1 | -33.6dB | -27.6dB | -18.3dB |
| Onkyo C-733 | -88.3dB | -40.4dB | -21.2dB |
| Denon DCD-3560 | -30.2dB | -24.7dB | -17.4dB |
| Myryad Z210 | -70.6dB (noise dominated) | -71.1dB (noise dominated) | -29.4dB (H3 dominated) |
| Sony CDP-x333ES | -30.5dB | -24.8dB | -16.3dB |
| BARCO-EMT 982 | -32.7dB | -24.5dB | -16.3dB |
| Revox B 126 | -60.9dB | -41.3dB | -23.3dB |
| Revox B 226-S | -61.1dB | -41.3dB | -23.3dB |
| Marantz CD-80 | -62.2dB | -41.4dB | -23.6dB |
I kept some references and will keep the same for other reviews, so you can quickly compare. The results of the Marantz mean that it has 1dB of headroom in its oversampling filter. I've put in the table the results of the Revox B 126 and B 226-S that use the same SAA7220, and you can see the results are nearly identical.
----
Let's continue with the good old 3DC measurement that Stereophile was often using as a proof of low noise DAC. It is from an undithered 997Hz sine at -90.31dBFS. With 16bits, the signal should appear (on a scope) as the 3DC levels of the smallest symmetrical sign magnitude digital signal:
Well, the result is not bad, only that it's not at the correct amplitude, since instead of being @-90.31dBFS, I see it at -93.71dBFS. That is a massive deviation from linearity which is the true weakness of this DAC. And despite the fact that this Marantz is very silent, it does not save the DAC from lack of linearity. In fact, at -80dBFS, the Marantz is already off track by 0.7dB.
----
Other measurements (not shown):
- IMD AES-17 DFD "Analog" (18kHz & 20kHz 1:1) : -95.7dB
- IMD AES-17 DFD "Digital" (17'987Hz & 19'997Hz 1:1) : -98.7dB
- IMD AES-17 MD (41Hz & 7993Hz 4:1): -109.5dB
- IMD CCIF (19kHz & 20kHz 1:1) : -98.4dB
- IMD DIN (250Hz & 8kHz 4:1) : -91.34dB
- IMD SMPTE (60Hz & 7kHz 1:4) : -92.0dB
- IMD TDFD Bass (41Hz & 89Hz 1:1) : -110dB
- IMD TDFD (13'58Hz & 19841Hz 1:1) : -117dB
- Dynamic Range : 98dB (without dither @-60dBFS)
- Crosstalk: -125dBr (100Hz), -128dBr (1khz), -107dBr (10kHz)
- Pitch Error : 19'997.67Hz (19'997Hz requested) ie 32.5ppm
- Gapless playback : Yes
The pitch error test shows a clock deviation of 32.5ppm, which is reasonable, even if other players did better at the time.
----
Last and not least, I like to run a THD vs Frequency sweep at -12dBFS as it shows how the conversion has evolved over time. I am currently using the beta version of REW and I discovered that this sweep gives better and more reliable results than before. I overlaid the results of the two channels of the Marantz with one from the Sony CDP-3337ESD using two standard TDA1541A (non-S1) in staggered mode by Sony, and a 1bit Sony player, the CDP-X333ES:
The 1bit beats them, reason why everybody went for that. The Crowned TDA1541A version does not do better that the dual standard TDA1541A.
Marantz CD-80 - Measurements (Digital Optical Output)
I've seen several of you reviewing CD players using their digital outputs, in case the results could be improved from an external DAC.
So let's go with the 999.91Hz @0dBFS:
This is as good as it gets from digital output. The 3DC level test (997Hz @0dBFS) shows no modification either:
But I think that from now on, I will just use the intersample overs test at 5512.50Hz, with a phase shift of 67.5°, like I did for the TASCAM CD-200 review. This signal generates an overshoot of +0.69dB and so if the signal would be modified before being sent, it would show either a reduction of amplitude or we'd see some sort of saturation. So here we go, the below is a comparison between the WAV File directly processed by the PC, and when played by the Marantz via the Optical out:
The two traces are the same, and we get the same "over" of +0.69dBFS. To me, this is as close as "bit perfect" digital output as we can get.
Marantz CD-80 - Testing the drive
What would be good measurements if the drive would not properly read a slightly scratched CD, or one that was created at the limits of the norm? The below tests reply to these questions.
| Test type | Technical test | Results |
| Variation of linear cutting velocity | From 1.20m/s to 1.40m/s | Pass |
| Variation of track pitch | From 1.5µm to 1.7µm | Pass |
| Combined variations of track pitch and velocity | From 1.20m/s & 1.5µm to 1.40m/s & 1.7µm | Pass |
| HF detection (asymmetry pitch/flat ratio) | Variation from 2% to 18% | Pass |
| Dropouts resistance | From 0.05mm (0.038ms) to 4mm (3.080ms) | 2.4mm |
| Combined dropouts and smallest pitch | From 1.5µm & 1mm to 1.5µm & 2.4mm | Pass |
| Successive dropouts | From 2x0.1mm to 2x3mm | 2.4mm |
The drive was able to consistently continue playing, without generating typical digital clicks, with dropouts of up to 2.4mm. The interpolation effect remained hidden to my ears when it kicked-off but failed to maintain a constant flow beyond 2.4mm as it generated typical clicks and was dropping few seconds here and there, but it never stopped reading the disc! The Marantz had no issue with variable linear velocity and/or track pitch, but I saw some interpolation effect in HF detection with the lowest asymmetry (that could be caused by a dirty lens).
These results are very good for the time and even by today's standards. These Philips CDM drives were really exceptional.
Conclusion
You now know much more about this old Marantz CD player which still sells for a high price. And well, it's not because of the quality of its conversion which was already beaten by many others at the time.
It still is a very good CD Player (I can't hear any issue), and also a "perfect" transport. The speed of the CDM1 is quite addictive.
Cheers
Last edited:
