CORPORATE FEATURE
All about Music, The Marantz Story In conversation with Joel Sietsem and Alankara Santhana Marantz has established a strong foundation in the industry with their High fidelity audio systems since the 1970s. Marantz designs products that have intricate detail and a perfect finish that maintain the Quality of Marantz sound. AV-ICNx got in touch with Joel Sietsem, President, Marantz, &Classé brands, and Alankara Santhana, Sales and Marketing - India, South Asia, Middle East. Sound United HK Ltd to know more about, how the company manages its operations worldwide and what challenges and opportunities they face in the Indian market.
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arantz has been in the business of sound reproduction since the early 1950s, can you tell us a bit about
Marantz technology, what makes it unique? How would you differentiate your product from others in the market? Marantz design and build quality are exemplary, with a suite of advanced technologies and a unique sound signature that sets it apart from competitors. The Marantz sound is pure, dynamic, and musical. By musical, we mean it is capable of richly producing the dimensionality, detail and texture of the music. Marantz listeners sometimes describe these traits as “warmth,” which we believe is an apt description of the signature Marantz sound quality. Marantz’s legendary prowess spans from developing top-of-the-line disc transports in-house to advance mastering technologies like Marantz’s proprietary Marantz Musical Mastering (MMM) technique. MMM functions by re-clocking PCM data, then processing it by a 32-bit floating-point DSP to produce a 1-bit/11.2MHz sigma-delta modulation stream. Those high-frequency pulses are then passed through the player’s MMM Conversion Stage—a DSD-to-analog low-pass filter—to the analog circuitry. This type of unique circuitry helps develop that signature musicality that Marantz listeners know and love. Another proprietary Marantz technology is its signature HDAM (Hyper Dynamic Amplifier Module) approach to pre-amplification, which offers yet another unique twist to Marantz’s signature sound that separates it from other amplifier manufacturers. A standard integrated-circuit operational amplifier is a commonly used
Joel Sietsem, President, Marantz & Classé brands method to increase output. These types of amplifiers are versatile, reliable, and inexpensive, but they also have serious limitations. Noise and a low slew rate - a measure of the rate of change in current over time - can greatly detract from the resulting sound quality, especially at higher frequencies. To combat this, in 1992 Marantz debuted a unique type of circuit board to take the place of the customary IC op-amps. HDAMs are preamplifier modules, situated between the volume control and power amplifier sections that perform the same function as the more conventional circuits. However, a few key upgrades within HDAM technology provide a noticeably enhanced level of performance. And that leads us to perhaps the most important facet of Marantz, which is its signature musical sound. This is accomplished of course by cuttingedge technologies like MMM and HDAM, AV-ICN TECHNOLOGY
Alankara Santhana, Sales and Marketing - India , South Asia , Middle East. Sound United HK Ltd but also by the thousands of hours spent from Marantz’s in-house Sound Master, who meticulously reviews each and every new product from Marantz to ensure it, adheres to the company’s signature sound. This high-touch approach is what so easily sets Marantz apart from the competition. How does Marantz focus on the quality of it’s product? Please tell us a little about the manufacturing facility and R&D process. High end Marantz components are designed and built in the company’s Shirakawa Audio Works factory in Shirakawa, Japan. Shirakawa Audio Works sets an incredibly high bar for manufacturing excellence, leveraging the famous Japanese approach to efficiency and gradual improvement, called Kaizen. Kaizen enables Marantz to continue improving on its processes to ensure ever-higher product build quality while leveraging the factory to its maximum output. MARCH - APRIL 2021
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