Hello Everyone,
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Marantz CD5400 stereo CD player.
Even though I love testing older CD players, this one test is peculiar because I'm currently abroad and it's the only CD player I was able to find near me (being in the middle of nowhere)
That said, it's also an opportunity for me to use the latest version of my test CD which has been largely influenced by @restorer-john and @AnalogSteph. The work continues to update it with more test files, but I thought it'd be cool not only to test the CD but to show you how this player behaves.
Marantz CD5400 - Presentation
This CD player was released around 2004 and was a low cost unit. The DAC is a CS4392 and the laser/pick-up mechanism is a KS213C from Sony.
You can see that despite being low cost, we still get a phones out, and as part of the functionalities, we find a funny pitch-control. Since I did not have the remote, I could not play with it, though.
On the back, we find the essentials (RCA analog and digital coax and optical):
Let's have a quick view at the inside:
The drive is fast to read TOC and skipping back and forth one or several tracks, which I always appreciate.
Note that there was a "Special Edition" of the same player, and so let's see first how this one performs.
Marantz CD5400 - Measurements (Analog Out)
From now on, I will be consistent with my measurements as I described them on the Onkyo C-733 review. So over time, this will help comparing the devices I reviewed.
The Marantz CD5400 outputs a 1dB less than the standard 2Vrsm from its RCA outputs. There was a slight channel imbalance 0.04dB (this is good). The RCA outputs invert absolute polarity.
Here you go with the less-standard 999.91Hz sine @0dBFS (undithered) from the test CD (RCA out):
The reason to use 999.91Hz is described by @AnalogSteph here and I performed pre-tests and reviewed them here. Basically, this signal self-dithers which allows more precise measurement, up to the limit of CD Audio. So the SINAD is not reduced by the presence of dither.
Both channels are represented but only one gets evaluated in that window. The THD is the same between the two channels but you can see higher level of power supply related noise from the right channel.
THD is at roughly -96dB and so will still clear CD Audio content. SINAD and ENOB are limited by the presence of noise, and for once in my tests, I can't say it's because of dithered noise of the test CD. The side bands around the fundamental are clearly power supply related.
Let's have a look at -6dBFS:
THD improves a little, which is good, but power supply noise remains and mainly in right channel. This is too bad, as the Marantz would have shown good performances otherwise. Zooming 20Hz to 1kHz reveals more of the issue:
Let's have a look at the bandwidth:
This is good, with small roll off at both ends and less than 0.4dB.
We continue with the oversampling filter (Overlay of periodic White Noise and 18k+20Hz dual tones):
The attenuation, out of band, is around -80dBr and we see it's a fast filter. The CS4392 has a choice of multiple filters, and so we are in the specs (-80/90dB attenuation says the datasheet for the fast roll-off filter).
The AES 18k+20kHz in this overlay shows random noise at the bottom of the tones, not of real concern, but higher than what I'm used to see.
No funny DSD oversampling for this older player, even if the DAC allows it, and as opposed to what we saw here with newer Marantz players.
Multitone test is disappointing for a CD Player:
I think we see (again) power supply related issues here. CD Audio data are barely saved.
Jitter is nasty, the worst I've seen so far:
Red trace is what is on the Test CD from digital output. The blue trace is from the analog outputs of the Marantz. Lots of jitter and noise components. This is not good for a CD player.
On your request and support (more information here), I am adding an "intersample-overs" test. It intends to identify if the oversampling filter has sufficient headroom to process near clipping signals. Indeed, and because of the oversampling, there might be interpolated data that go above 0dBFS and would saturate (clip) the DAC and therefore the output. This effect is highlighted with the measurements below, and revealed through THD+N measurements up to 96kHz:
I left several other references for you to compare with. The oversampling filter to the Marantz CD5400 has roughly 1dB headroom (better than many).
Here are some other measurements:
We can see that the level of distortion is relatively high at low frequency, but it becomes near best in class as soon as 300Hz.
Marantz CD5400 - Measurements (Digital Out)
I tested both Optical and Coaxial digital outputs. They showed no issue to output a correct digital signal:
This is a more standard 1kHz test tone with dither and you can see that there are no distorsion components nor noise, as we shall expect.
And when representing the smallest possible 16bits signal, we get the perfect 3DC representation, indicating no digital transformation:
The ripples are due to the Gibbs phenomenon, of course.
For fun, I add a view of an overlay of a 997Hz test tone with triangular and shaped dither:
You can see that the noise floor goes down by a lot of dB up to 6kHz with the shaped dither, which is the expected benefit. So if an external DAC would be used with a higher resolution, you'd get a lot more from the digital outputs of the player.
The Marantz CD5400 can therefore act as a perfect transport.
Conclusions
I'm disappointed by this little player because it could have been a very good one. Is it due to an aging power supply, or bad design?
Some measurements are really good, like the THD or decent resistance to intersample-overs, but in so many places we see this Marantz suffering from power supply related noise.
At the end, and even if this player does not shine when measured, it’s still unlikely that its flaws would be detected when listening to music. Even the high level of jitter would remain largely masked, at least to me. But I certainly prefer seeing better measurements.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, there was a "Special Edition" of this player and maybe it was a fix to the flaws I’ve seen here?
Anyways, it can be used as a transport with an external DAC, in which case you benefit from a fast drive, and that's cool.
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Marantz CD5400 stereo CD player.
Even though I love testing older CD players, this one test is peculiar because I'm currently abroad and it's the only CD player I was able to find near me (being in the middle of nowhere)
That said, it's also an opportunity for me to use the latest version of my test CD which has been largely influenced by @restorer-john and @AnalogSteph. The work continues to update it with more test files, but I thought it'd be cool not only to test the CD but to show you how this player behaves.
Marantz CD5400 - Presentation
This CD player was released around 2004 and was a low cost unit. The DAC is a CS4392 and the laser/pick-up mechanism is a KS213C from Sony.
You can see that despite being low cost, we still get a phones out, and as part of the functionalities, we find a funny pitch-control. Since I did not have the remote, I could not play with it, though.
On the back, we find the essentials (RCA analog and digital coax and optical):
Let's have a quick view at the inside:
The drive is fast to read TOC and skipping back and forth one or several tracks, which I always appreciate.
Note that there was a "Special Edition" of the same player, and so let's see first how this one performs.
Marantz CD5400 - Measurements (Analog Out)
From now on, I will be consistent with my measurements as I described them on the Onkyo C-733 review. So over time, this will help comparing the devices I reviewed.
The Marantz CD5400 outputs a 1dB less than the standard 2Vrsm from its RCA outputs. There was a slight channel imbalance 0.04dB (this is good). The RCA outputs invert absolute polarity.
Here you go with the less-standard 999.91Hz sine @0dBFS (undithered) from the test CD (RCA out):
The reason to use 999.91Hz is described by @AnalogSteph here and I performed pre-tests and reviewed them here. Basically, this signal self-dithers which allows more precise measurement, up to the limit of CD Audio. So the SINAD is not reduced by the presence of dither.
Both channels are represented but only one gets evaluated in that window. The THD is the same between the two channels but you can see higher level of power supply related noise from the right channel.
THD is at roughly -96dB and so will still clear CD Audio content. SINAD and ENOB are limited by the presence of noise, and for once in my tests, I can't say it's because of dithered noise of the test CD. The side bands around the fundamental are clearly power supply related.
Let's have a look at -6dBFS:
THD improves a little, which is good, but power supply noise remains and mainly in right channel. This is too bad, as the Marantz would have shown good performances otherwise. Zooming 20Hz to 1kHz reveals more of the issue:
Let's have a look at the bandwidth:
This is good, with small roll off at both ends and less than 0.4dB.
We continue with the oversampling filter (Overlay of periodic White Noise and 18k+20Hz dual tones):
The attenuation, out of band, is around -80dBr and we see it's a fast filter. The CS4392 has a choice of multiple filters, and so we are in the specs (-80/90dB attenuation says the datasheet for the fast roll-off filter).
The AES 18k+20kHz in this overlay shows random noise at the bottom of the tones, not of real concern, but higher than what I'm used to see.
No funny DSD oversampling for this older player, even if the DAC allows it, and as opposed to what we saw here with newer Marantz players.
Multitone test is disappointing for a CD Player:
I think we see (again) power supply related issues here. CD Audio data are barely saved.
Jitter is nasty, the worst I've seen so far:
Red trace is what is on the Test CD from digital output. The blue trace is from the analog outputs of the Marantz. Lots of jitter and noise components. This is not good for a CD player.
On your request and support (more information here), I am adding an "intersample-overs" test. It intends to identify if the oversampling filter has sufficient headroom to process near clipping signals. Indeed, and because of the oversampling, there might be interpolated data that go above 0dBFS and would saturate (clip) the DAC and therefore the output. This effect is highlighted with the measurements below, and revealed through THD+N measurements 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 |
Yamaha CD-1 | -79.6dB | -35.3dB | -78.1dB |
Denon DCD-900NE | -34.2dB | -30.4dB | -19.1dB |
Denon DCD-SA1 | -33.6dB | -27.6dB | -18.3dB |
Onkyo C-733 | -79.8dB | -29.4dB | -21.2dB |
Marantz CD5400 | -78.1dB | -32dB | -29.5dB |
I left several other references for you to compare with. The oversampling filter to the Marantz CD5400 has roughly 1dB headroom (better than many).
Here are some other measurements:
- Crosstalk : -140dB (@1kHz)
- IMD AES : -79.5dB (18kHz+20kHz 1:1 @-5dBFS)
We can see that the level of distortion is relatively high at low frequency, but it becomes near best in class as soon as 300Hz.
Marantz CD5400 - Measurements (Digital Out)
I tested both Optical and Coaxial digital outputs. They showed no issue to output a correct digital signal:
This is a more standard 1kHz test tone with dither and you can see that there are no distorsion components nor noise, as we shall expect.
And when representing the smallest possible 16bits signal, we get the perfect 3DC representation, indicating no digital transformation:
The ripples are due to the Gibbs phenomenon, of course.
For fun, I add a view of an overlay of a 997Hz test tone with triangular and shaped dither:
You can see that the noise floor goes down by a lot of dB up to 6kHz with the shaped dither, which is the expected benefit. So if an external DAC would be used with a higher resolution, you'd get a lot more from the digital outputs of the player.
The Marantz CD5400 can therefore act as a perfect transport.
Conclusions
I'm disappointed by this little player because it could have been a very good one. Is it due to an aging power supply, or bad design?
Some measurements are really good, like the THD or decent resistance to intersample-overs, but in so many places we see this Marantz suffering from power supply related noise.
At the end, and even if this player does not shine when measured, it’s still unlikely that its flaws would be detected when listening to music. Even the high level of jitter would remain largely masked, at least to me. But I certainly prefer seeing better measurements.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this review, there was a "Special Edition" of this player and maybe it was a fix to the flaws I’ve seen here?
Anyways, it can be used as a transport with an external DAC, in which case you benefit from a fast drive, and that's cool.
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