Marantz PM4200 9/10 - Date Posted 02/09/2002

This is Marantz entry range amplifier. It sports the usual Marantz "look", statesman-like and clearly styled to look like a traditional amplifier. There are no fancy LCDs here! Also included is a remote control, something missing from many dedicated amplifiers at this price point. Rated at around 30W it had enough power for most entry-level users. I powered up two floorstanding Mission m73 speakers and found the result quite reasonable. However, the setup did not perform too well at low volumes. I suspect this is because of the speakers! The sound quality is reasonable and quite crisp, but can be a bit too agressive at times, for example when playing dance music or certain rock tracks you lose a small amount of detail. For vinyl junkies there is a built in phono stage. I am not a great collector of vinyl and as such I could not test this out!

One point to note is that this bulky unit gets quite hot, after several minutes of playback. This should not pose any problems provided you give the amplifier enough clearence to facilitate the flow of air. As good as this amplifier is I cannot help thinking that it might require more power or perhaps more accomodating speakers. Perhaps, if you are interested in this and like the Marantz style of sound, try the more powerful PM7000. I have not tried the PM7000, but I would expect it to be similar to this unit.