So I had a break in and with some of the money I received, I bought myself a secondhand Musical Fidelity A3.5 CD Player (2005) to replace my reliable 1997 Marantz CD6000 OSE.
The Marantz is a great piece of kit for the money. It's very precise, detailed yet subtle, so after a bit of system swapping my main setup is the Marantz PM7001 Ki Sig with the A3.5 CD and the irreplaceable Rogers LS55 floorstanders.
The immediate thing I noticed on almost every track I played was just how more detailed and forward the A3.5 was, without being brash or overpowering. It's almost as if loads more colour and life has been injected into every piece of music. The A3.5 makes everything suddenly sound so much better than before. The biggest margin of difference is noticed on fast, complicated tracks with loads of detail where this deck punches its way through like Ali in his fizzing prime.
I appreciate the A3.5 is in a different class to the 6000 OSE, but the gulf is truly amazing and overall even better than the Rega Saturn and Apollo and my other Arcam CD192 that I've had connected up to it too. I'm beginning to wonder how much money I'd have to part with to improve by this margin again.
The Marantz is a great piece of kit for the money. It's very precise, detailed yet subtle, so after a bit of system swapping my main setup is the Marantz PM7001 Ki Sig with the A3.5 CD and the irreplaceable Rogers LS55 floorstanders.
The immediate thing I noticed on almost every track I played was just how more detailed and forward the A3.5 was, without being brash or overpowering. It's almost as if loads more colour and life has been injected into every piece of music. The A3.5 makes everything suddenly sound so much better than before. The biggest margin of difference is noticed on fast, complicated tracks with loads of detail where this deck punches its way through like Ali in his fizzing prime.
I appreciate the A3.5 is in a different class to the 6000 OSE, but the gulf is truly amazing and overall even better than the Rega Saturn and Apollo and my other Arcam CD192 that I've had connected up to it too. I'm beginning to wonder how much money I'd have to part with to improve by this margin again.
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