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In the rest of the Free World, outside North America, Marantz International is part of Philips. Under product manager Ken Ishiwata and his team—Ken being a Japanese who has resided for some years in Belgium—International has made an audiophile name for itself. The best Marantz products (seldom seen on this side of the Atlantic until now) combine European sound quality with Japanese build quality.

Now under new ownership, Marantz Company, Inc. (USA) is bringing in some of these products: the upmarket "94" series…

CD-94: Solid-state compact disc player. Frequency response: 4Hz–20kHz –0.5dB. Dynamic range: 96dB. S/N ratio: 96dB. Total harmonic distortion: 0.003% (1kHz). D/A conversion: 16-bit 4x oversampling. Audio output level: 2V RMS.
Dimensions: 3.5" H by 18.125" W by 13.125" D. Weight: 27.5 lbs.
Price: $1800; no longer available.

CDA-94: Outboard digital/analog converter. Sampling rate: Compatible with 32kHz, 44.1kHz, and 48kHz (automatic selection). Frequency response (44.1kHz rate): 2Hz–10kHz –0.1dB (fixed outputs and variable outputs at max level); 20Hz…

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There are two sessions: 1pm–3pm and 4pm–6pm. For more information click here.

"Lonnie, how'd you like to review some speakers?" It was John Atkinson.

"Sure, but send me some stands, too, would you? I don't have any."

"Not a problem."

Stands and speakers showed up together in one massive display of sticking-together-thru-UPS solidarity. The stands were from Lovan, with four spiked feet and a column you can fill with sand, which I did. Without sand, they rang like bells when tapped; though the sound was lovely, it probably wasn't conducive to good performance. Once sandbagged, they just went thunk when rapped.

The Spectrum's plot of impedance magnitude and phase (fig.1) indicates that it is a very easy load for an amplifier to drive, only dropping below 8 ohms in the midrange and then only by a small fraction of an ohm. The 108cd is also sensitive, 2.83V raising 88.5dB (B-weighted) at 1m.

The tuning of the 3"-diameter port is revealed by the impedance saddle at 55Hz. Note, however, the wrinkles in the traces at 180Hz and 220Hz, indicating the presence of resonances of some kind. And listening to the 108cd's panels with a stethoscope while sweeping a sinewave up…

For this review, I compared the EAD DSP-1000 and the Adcom GFA-700 with the Audio Alchemy DDE v3.0 HDCD decoder fed through its I2S bus by a DTI 2.0 digital jitter reduction unit.

Both standard and HDCD-encoded CDs were played on a Krell MD-1 turntable. For an overall collection of superbly recorded HDCD-encoded music, I used the HDCD Sampler Volume 2 (Reference RR-90CD), which includes classical, jazz, and a selection of three musical samples recorded with and without HDCD for comparison. A single 75 ohm digital-specific Silver Starlight coaxial cable was run…

Description: Two-way, reflex-loaded, stand-mounted loudspeaker. Drive-units: ¾"-dome tweeter, 8"-cone woofer. Crossover frequency: 3.5kHz; first-order crossover to tweeter, second-order crossover to woofer. Frequency response: 49Hz–21kHz ±3dB. Sensitivity: 91dB/W/m. Nominal impedance: 8 ohms. Power handling: 125W RMS, 200W peak.
Dimensions: 10.5" W by 9.75" D by 15.5" H. Weight: 19 lbs each.
Serial numbers of units tested: 200537, 200538.
Price: $399/pair. Approximate number of dealers: 35 (1995). No longer available (2015).
Manufacturer:…