Marantz Esotec MA-5 & SM-6 experience?

legal eagle

legal eagle

Sound Hound
So I have a Marantz Esotec SC-6 preamp which I love so much, that I grabbed a pair of Esotec MA-5 monolocks & an SM-6 amp without audiotioning them.

I am only getting them in July and already I can't sleep at night expecting them to arrive safe.

cchean was kind enough to share is opinion of the MA-5 he has (thanks man :thmbsp:), and I was wondering - has anybody else got hands on experience with any of those? I've been to thevintageknob and such, and really need hands on experience and opinion :scratch2:

BTW - one of cchean pointers was that the on/off button on the MA-5 is behind the flap, making it a pain in the a$$ turning it on and off, so he has it hooked to the preamp power or a power strip. Anybody else does that? Sounds reasonable to me.
 
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I used to sell the SM-6.
In Class-A it's heaven and in Class-B it was even used with small bands for live performance.
Pure DC from IN to OUT.
Only 1 electrolytic/channel that should be replaced (C603/C604, 10uF-25V) and the amp plays like new.
At least that's in my experience.

SC-6 / MA-5 I don't know about.

Best,

/tri-comp
 
legal eagle said:
So I have a Marantz Esotec SC-6 preamp which I love so much, that I grabbed a pair of Esotec MA-5 monolocks & an SM-6 amp without audiotioning them.

I am only getting them in July and already I can't sleep at night expecting them to arrive safe.

cchean was kind enough to share is opinion of the MA-5 he has (thanks man :thmbsp:), and I was wondering - has anybody else got hands on experience with any of those? I've been to thevintageknob and such, and really need hands on experience and opinion :scratch2:

BTW - one of cchean pointers was that the on/off button on the MA-5 is behind the flap, making it a pain in the a$$ turning it on and off, so he has it hooked to the preamp power or a power strip. Anybody else does that? Sounds reasonable to me.
Click to expand...

Marantz class A in the PM-94 can hang with many many modern amps costing much more. The MA-5 is from the same family. If i had the chance, id pick one up right away. Something about class-a...it just sounds pure.

I also have the SM-5, at "only" 20wpc pure class A.....cant get it to make sound, but im loooking forward to it playing again!
 
I have an SM-6 in the bedroom driving a pair of M&K SAT-1B's...it sounds good, has enough power ( I never use the class A though), and above all, it looks good, which is why it lives in the bedroom. I can;t speak to it's utmost sound quality though, since most of the time it's used for a DVD or to blast music through to the bathroom. All the controls are under the little door, which is horribly inconvenient since it's not even really a door like modern Yamaha stuff, but a removable (and loosable!!) panel. Mine was missing when I got it...but found one on eBay. I use a Rotel RLC-900 (line conditioner/power switcher) to switch it on and off with the preamp. Seems to run cool enough out of class A mode. The only real complaint is the beautiful meters don't really move at all until it's pretty darn loud.
 
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