Marantz CD 70 CD Player

A disc player that also reads the stick in your pocket

The Marantz CD 70 is a dedicated CD player with a front panel USB-A socket that plays high resolution files up to 192kHz and DSD, so a collection that lives half on disc and half on a drive comes out of one box. The analogue output stage and the headphone stage both run Marantz HDAM-SA2 modules, and the converter sits under the company's DAC Master Clock Design. There are no digital inputs, which is the one thing to be clear on before you buy.

Why You'll Love It

• Discrete Marantz modules, not op-amps. HDAM-SA2 in both the analogue output stage and the headphone stage is the circuit Marantz uses to give its players the character people buy them for.
• The USB socket is a real feature. Front panel USB-A handles FLAC, ALAC, AIFF and WAV to 192kHz and DSD at 2.8 and 5.6MHz, which covers everything most people have downloaded.
• A headphone output worth using. A dedicated amplifier with its own HDAM-SA2 buffer, three gain settings and its own volume control, delivering 163mW into 32Ω on the high setting.

Under the Hood

• Precision disc mechanism reading CD and CD-R/RW, with an upgraded high performance converter and DAC Master Clock Design timing.
• Front USB-A playback of FLAC, ALAC, AIFF and WAV to 192kHz, MP3, WMA and AAC, and DSD at 2.8 and 5.6MHz.
• Gold plated RCA analogue output at 2.2V rms, plus optical and coaxial digital outputs, with THD of 0.0016% and signal to noise of 110dB on CD.

CHT Insider Verdict

This is a properly built disc player at a sensible price, and the USB socket genuinely earns its place rather than being a tick on a box. Two things to know. It is not an SACD player, despite where it usually sits on a shelf, so a hybrid SACD will play its CD layer only. And it has no digital inputs and no USB-B, so it cannot double as a converter for a computer or a television. If you need that, look at the networked models instead.

Pro Tip: Format the USB drive as FAT32 and keep folders shallow. The CD 70 indexes a maximum of 256 folders, and a drive organised the way a computer likes it will hit that ceiling long before it runs out of space.