Mechanics (Great Philips CD300 transport) Great design whitout LCD display only LEDs

Capacitors

This is great CD player. I dont think that you can buy better sound for about $1000. The only thing that you can do is to change capacitors (siemens sikorel) because of the age of production of this CD player

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Many of more expensive CD player more expensive CD player $1000-$2000

cristal sound

no weaknesses

summary don't need

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only Marantz

Very well built to last. Amazing sound quality.

None of the fancy features of the modern CDP

I read fantastic reviews on Marantz's legendary CD73 years ago when it was first introduced back in 1982. At that time, it would have cost me a few months' pay to own one and there weren't enough software (music CDs)around to maximise its true potential. So, the thought of owning one went on to the back shelves of my cluttered brain. 20 years on, I came across one in pretty good nick at a swap meet ( I was in the queue to be among the first in when the door opened). The owner told me that he was selling it as he was getting old and could not be bothered with too many pieces of collectables around his house. He said it needed a service as it had intermittent crackling sound. Not worrying about that, I gladly paid him what he asked for and trudged around the rest of the morning with a 10kg behemoth under my arm. Managed to pick up a couple of other bargains too but I'll leave those to another time. Once home, I removed the covering screws, and systematically unplugged every connector and dusted and sprayed contact cleaner before reconnecting and moving on to the next connector. Then I gave the laser lens a clean with a well known lens cleaner and regreased the nylon/plastic gears under in the transport mechanism. Lastly, I looked at all the caps to make sure they had not leaked the solder joints were OK. Externally, the RCA sockets were cleaned along with the cover. After a couple of hours, it was ready to go. I plugged in the CD73 and connected it to my Musical Fidelity A3 amp / Dynaudio Contour 1.3SE combination. Result? well - I must say that I was very impressed. After all these years and the improvement in technology, the CD73 sounded as good as if not better than a lot of the CDPs I have come across. It had transparency, imaging, well balanced, and reproduced as faithfully and as accurately as some of the CDPs under a nine hundred quids. I suppose I could write more glowing stuff about this player's musical qualities but some of the other quaint features probably need to be highlighted too. 1) The transport mechanism and its green LED display. 2) the track fwd/back cue. 3) remote control. In summary - excellent player. Definitely worth collecting and very usable.

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Musical Fidelity CD3, Marantz Cd7,

Fantastic sound, much more "analogue" than most current players. After listening to it for some hours the question is what the cd player manufacturers did in the last 19 years?

Remote not available anymore, No Digital out, The feets are *horrible*

Great Player! TDA 1540 14 Bit/4x Oversampling is correct. Has a L/C Digitalfilter found currently in $5000 players. In short, 10 kg built just to play cd''s without any comfort. Legendary Phillips CDM-1 drive with crystal lense.

fantastic sound (Great, strong but not blown up bass, scrystal clear hights, bo noise/distortion)

not built anymore, no digital out

Great massive CD-Player with fantastic sound and great design, weights about 10 kg, plays EVERY CD and and CD-R, even when there are big scratches and holes on the silver side (did not find any other CD-Player that played these).

Compared it to some other CD-Players (new ones) in the price range between 500$ and 1000$ (Sony, Pioneer, Thorens) and did not find anything better.
Is also definately better than Philips CD 303 that is already pretty good (this one has the same Transport and a lot of the same elements inside, but not all...and a different (silver) design)

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Philips CD 303

I picked this up unit mint for A$99 (US$60), on a whim really - it's an early-80s model, Belgian made, champagne-gold face with a chunky pop-out tray (frontloader) and a row of 15 green LEDs instead of a digital display. Retro chic or what? The tray door and top of the drive bay are made of thick perspex (clear plastic) so you can watch all the action, which is lit by banks of more green LEDs. Groovy.
Technically, I've been told it's a 14-bit DAC - please correct me if this is wrong - with no oversampling. The back panel is dominated by a large heatsink which seems to do some work (hopefully not too much), and there's a pair of gold RCA outputs and a pair of similar base-metal connectors for the, erhem, WIRED REMOTE. The power supply is a lovely switching-voltage unit (100V/110V/220V/240V) with a standard two-pin socket, so this baby goes with me when I move ...

The front display offers power, open/close, play, stop (cancel), and track scan. Pretty rudimentary. The tracking is dead reliable but v-e-r-r-r-y slow.

How does it sound? Well, it's no Mark Levinson but it holds its own against our previous Sony CDP-291. The highs and mids are crystalline with no grit or harshness, a bit more lively than the Sony. However, there is a distinct lack of authority when compared to say a Musical Fidelity unit or even the current Marantz CD-19. There IS NO BASS - a fundamental flaw.

But it does have the coolest mechanism around short of a Sonic Frontiers Transport 3. Very 'mechanical', but very smooth and reliable - it even sports a servoed magnetic disk clamp. Marantz build quality - sweet!

My rating reflects the unit as it stands - great looks, retro cred, dead reliable, sounds ordinary. But if you're broke and see one cheap, or suffer fits of aesthetic pique (like I do), give it a thought.

Over the next coupla weeks I'll be chasing some of our local technicians to see if a co-axial digital output can be retrofitted. Then I'll have this shit-hot old transport rigged up to me X-DAC for the price of a good bottle of wine - what a laugh!

Feel free to add your info/story, or mail me ...

Matches other gold marantz gear, loud, plays anything, looks kool, neat loading tray.

slow on those long songs and cd's with more then 15 tracks are a pain

Ok, I just like to say to the other person who review this wonderful cd player to CHECK YOUR FACTS! Hmmm, lets not just guess as stuff, well that help out people? Anyways most of his review is guessed at the only part thats right it the "retro look". Some of the kool things are WIRELESS REMOTE, yes wireless (you connect a box to that jack, not the remote). It also has 4X oversampleing (not none). Good bass too this badboy goes down to 10hz. It also has a christal lense (makes it slow, but sound great and very clear/loud). Well, all in all this is a very good cd player and it well play any disk you pop in it, even data, and cd's with huge scraches in 'em and make then sound good.

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lots of marantz gear, sony, koss, aiwa, diskmans