Marantz Model 30

INTEGRATED AMPLIFIER

- HERB REICHERT

DeKalb, Illinois, 1971: When I was in college, my anthropology professor would invite me and a few of his other favored students to his house for fondue parties. We sat on shag carpet around a glass-topped coffee table, drank wine, and dipped vegetables in molten cheese. The stated purpose of this rite was to discuss Margaret Mead or Franz Boas, but that was obviously a ruse. The gathering was really about excessive pot smoking accompanied by coughing fits and the telling of ridiculous stories, all while playing LPs on his top-of-the-line Dual turntable/record-changer.

I can’t remember any stories, but I will never forget how one ceiling-mounted spotlight illuminated his record player and another highlighted a gleaming Marantz Model Thirty “Console Stereo Amplifier.” To young me, his Marantz amplifier looked glamorous, like something out of Playboy magazine. I was mesmerized by its symmetrically arranged knobs and sliders. Its thick wood case almost matched the brown wood of the floor-to-ceiling bookcase, which almost matched the brown wood of the AR-3a loudspeakers nestled on shelves below.

I felt honored to be included in these cheesy soirees, and I remember thinking how my professor’s extensive record collection and the upscale audio system added an aura of worldly sophistication to our anthropology studies.

That was 50 years ago.

Since then, I’ve become a fully initiated audio tribesman, and today I am reviewing the new, futuristic-looking Marantz Model 30 integrated amplifier. As far as I can tell, the only thing it shares with its legendary ancestor is its name.

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