(well, almost modern) Marantz PM-25 integrated amplifier

mhardy6647

Lunatic Member
So - this cute little Marantz integrated amplifier - not quite modern, but not quite vintage, either - followed me home from NEARC (www.nearc.net) on Saturday. Seems low-ish end but fairly nice overall.

Anyone have one or know anything about it? Looks to date from the early 1990s(?). www.hifiengine.com has the ROW manual for the fairly similar PM-35 (appears to be the next model up).

Any information/opinions greatly appreciated and gratefully received.

Thanks!
 
It's interesting that they carried over the traditional silk screen font type from their vintage gear. Still made in Japan.

Cool. :yes:
 
The "Made in Japan" was a big part of the reason that I even bothered to pick it up.
The "problem" with this particular amp may be gleaned from the rear panel photo... I suspect that someone had a pair of "death grip" cables on the CD inputs. When said cables ere removed, they apparently didn't go quietly, and took the RCA jacks' outer shield with 'em :-O
 
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I don't doubt it - it's them danged ol' differential electrochemical potentials of dissimilar metals :)
 
Some experience with "death grip" interconnects. Eventually, I put them all in the trash.

Anyway, nice looking little box but it doesn't look like it's going to be easy to replace those RCA jacks.

From the looks of it, I'm guessing about 35 wpc?

Murray
 
Mark, I don't know if this will help in finding info or not, but -

I don't think it's from the early '90s, primarily because of the "Chatsworth, California" on the rear panel. That would lead me to believe it would date anywhere from 1980 to about 1985. I have lots of Buyer's Guides, but unfortunately none from that period.

I would guess this is the period after Superscope sold Marantz Japan - and the rights to the name everywhere but North America - to Philips. In 1986/87 Marantz America was sold to Dynascan, but this amp is definitely too good for that time period. After 1990, Philips regained control of the Marantz brand in the US and Canada, and quality increased - but those products wouldn't say "Chatsworth" on the back. I could be totally wrong, of course.

Nice amp, BTW!

EDIT: I'll throw this out, too, as food for thought. It's been suggested that some of Marantz' better models in the '80-'89 time period were actually manufactured by Sansui - and there is something about the look of your amp that suggests that. Just a possibility.
 
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As I was doing a painting job in a loft I was looking for some quality sound company other than a bluetooth Nokia speaker.
With that in mind I have picked up the Marantz PM-25 at a flee market for 30 Euro's intending to combine it with small Wharfedale Diamond IV's

Well, bummer, this ugly black face produced such a nice clear sound that I could not get myself to waste take it to the painting environment.

I like it, and actually for the first time I found a matching apmplifier for Visonik Expulse II (by Heco, Germany) a set of black round cornered metal grilled obscure late '70's speakers that I can't find anything on on the internet because the search is leading to other larger speakers.
I currently have the PM-25 hooked up in the living room to Dynaudio 4 Ohm Contour 1.8 speakers that are so called requiring serious juice to drive but the Maranzt handles them well. Especially nice on vocal and jazz.

The gold plated RCA Phono input asked for a "try me" and I found the phono sound als very pleasing.

yHF5Jd
 
Looks like Marantz, Phillips era but around 1988. Elna's electrolytics used will almost all show production date. PCB quality ..., if you need to replace parts, be more carefull than carefull desoldering parts. Keep in mind all the time that current cheapest chinese pcb's are tougher. Some service points over here refuse to handle Marantz with these pcb's, that includes seperate pre/power combo's made in Japan from same years. Be warned, really really vulnerable pads and traces.
 
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