Hi folks
I have owned a Marantz CD63 MkII KI Signature CD Player for many years…it’s still working perfectly with zero issues, but I’m wanting something better and more modern..and to be able to play FLAC files via USB
I have a buyer for my old CD63 next week for £220 cash! I was going to put my money on the sale to buy the Marantz CD6007 from Richer Sounds next week, but now I’m hearing about an issue with the DAC installed not being the one advertised?!!? it is not the AK4490 as Marantz state, but an ESS ES9010 K2M??
How do I get one with the AK chip? Is there a way to tell with serial numbers?
It seems to me that the only question you asked is how you can get a 6007 with an AKM DAC chip inside it - so first of all you deserve a response to that question.
So far it appears no one here can give you a definitive answer. And I am no different in that regard. However, I did a quick Google search and found a YouTube video where, in the comments on the video, a couple of people provide some useful information:
1. One commenter says, "Marantz cd6007 with AK4490 DAC are models where fifth number from the serial number counting from the back is below 7, so all CDs with above 7 are with ESS9016 DAC." So it sounds like the 5th digit from the
end of the serial number (not the 5th digit from the beginning) should be lower than 7. They say AKM must be below 7, but they also say ESS is above 7, so it's not clear which DAC chip it would have if that digit were exactly 7. And of course neither I nor anyone else here can verify if that commenter is correct - people make definitive-sounding assertions on the internet all the time, and they truly believe they are certain, but then if you scratch the surface you find they've made some undisclosed logical leaps to arrive at that certainty. So this might be a dependable way to find an AKM 6007, or it might not.
2. Another commenter says that the first 4 numerical digits of the serial number - the first numbers after the initial letters in the serial number - will be the month and year of production. The example they give is a serial that starts "ABCD0221..." In that example, the 0221 means manufactured February of 2021. The AKM fire was in October of 2020. Marantz presumably had a stockpile of AKM chips and so probably was not forced to change to the ESS chips until sometime after that. Another commenter says their unit has a 1021 date code and has the ESS chip, while another commenter says theirs has an 0521 date code and has the AKM chip. So it appears sometime between May and October of 2021, Marantz made the change.
With all that said, a quick perusal of this forum will show that the underlying premise or motivation for your question - "how can I get the better sounding DAC?" - is not one that most folks here agree with. The idea that these two DAC chips - which both provide measurable performance that exceeds human hearing thresholds for frequency linearity, noise, distortion, and so on - would have audibly different "sound signatures" is an idea that has no valid evidence to support it.
If you feel that others' uncontrolled, subjective listening impressions are valid and useful, that's your prerogative. But whatever your opinion or view, the fact is that you're not going to get much agreement about that around here, and so you should be prepared for folks to make the kinds of comments they've made above that the two DAC chips are not going to make a difference in the sound that ends up coming out of your speakers.
Good luck with your search!
You’d think that if there is such a huge audible difference that it would be obvious from the get-go…
