Marantz NA7004

[torres del paine]

I've been looking at sorting out my hifi. I've just replaced my old Marantz 7200 with dodgy right channel with a ki pearl lite, which is very good indeed.

I was thinking about replacing my 6000ose le cdp with the ki pearl player but then that got me thinking about the NA7004 network player. I understand that the DAC is the same as the one in the ki pearl, so the sq should be sumptuous, which is how I like it. Has anyone got first hand experience of the sound quality?

Also, is it possible to simply connect an external hard drive and play flac files quickly and easily? If so, I would rip my cd collection and forget about a cd player. I would prefer this method of retrieval over wireless PC connection.

The Marantz network player is very tempting at current prices, £350 ish.

Any thoughts would be very welcome.

Btw, l listen to a lot of electronica, ambient, classical and some classic rock.

[Mellow7]

I got mine a few weeks before Christmas and I think it's great. As with most things, the output quality much depends on the quality of the input source, but the results are excellent with FLAC/WAV and pretty good with MP3 320. DAB and Internet Radio works well, and Spotify on my Netbook using the USB DAC is also very good.

I paid £360 for a silver one, which is rare like hens teeth! Took a few weeks to bed in though and sounded a bit cold at first, but give it time and it will improve.

[JimbobVFR]

My understanding (after looking at these for a hour or so on the internet) is they have 2 USB ports, the one on the rear is only for use as a USB DAC input, you can connect a PC and use the Marantz as a DAC for playing from your PC. The USB on the front is for USB memory, and hard drives, ipods etc. So yes in theory you could plug a hard drive in but the cable would be hanging out the front. Ideally you would want to stream from a server with your music on, either running on a PC or my preference a NAS of some sort.

[Mellow7]

Just ead the rest of your post...

The front panel has a USB/iPod port which I connected my Sony MP3 to and it played all the file formats that the sony could read. I don't see why it won't read Flac files on a Seagate drive or similar, but haven't tried. Mine's linked to a My Book Live 2TB NAS (Pay no attention to the negative posts on Amazon - it just works, and that's it!) so busy downloading most CD's at MP3 320 format and my favourites in WAV Lossless (yes, it gets lost with poor tag support compared with Flac but if you stick to "folder view" on the NA7004 it works fine). I have a 26 year old Phillips CD960 which I have resurected so I'll keep the best CD's for that.

My taste in music is the same as yours but I like a good tune/beat...it even plays the guff my wife listen's to (Rhydian FFS!)

[nonuts]

I think the technical bits have been covered, I also got one recently, it's sounds good in my system. My surprise is it also sounds acceptable with the low bitrate internet radio and things like last.fm.

You may want to take a read of this thread, once you start ripping your music collection you don't really want to do it again.

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

I'm doing all of mine in FLAC as separate tracks using EAC and I did have a brief issue with the twonky server I was using where it was putting things in alphabetical rather than track order, however that's an easy fix and not related to the NA7004.

[torres del paine]

Thanks for the replies.

Just ordered one

[torres del paine]

Quick update. The network player is fantastic, the sound quality is superb and it does everything I want it to do. And internet radio is revelation.

To top it all I've just picked up a pair of vintage 80s Tannoy speakers which are sublime, they are blowing me away to be honest, just gorgeous.

So: Marantz NA7004 + KI Pearl Lite Amp + Tannoy M20 Gold Mk2 Speakers =

Chuffed tbh, thought I'd share.