Marantz CC4000 (March 2000)

The Marantz CC4000 is a five-disc CD changer released in March 2000 at ¥28,000. The name is all over the place in the surviving record. It shows up as “CC4000,” “CC-4000,” and “CC 4000,” and an “OSE” variant is documented too, but they all refer to the same basic 5-disc carousel machine. Three things set it apart from a typical budget changer: CD-RW playback, a digital servo, and a bit-stream DAC, which Marantz pitched as bringing “audiophile performance” to a multi-disc format. A coaxial digital output sits next to the 2.0 Vrms stereo analog output.

The feature set is practical. The CC4000 has edit, peak search, shuffle, and program functions for up to 40 tracks, plus fade-in and fade-out. A wireless remote comes with it. The transport uses a laser pickup with a 780nm AlGaAs semiconductor laser and Cross Interleaved Reed-Solomon Code (CIRC) error correction. It draws only 7W and weighs 6.0kg, and it measures 440 × 119 × 390 mm.

Here are the specifications recorded in the Audio Database. Frequency response is 20 Hz to 20 kHz ±0.4 dB. Dynamic range is 90 dB at 1kHz, signal-to-noise ratio is 98 dB at 1kHz, channel separation is 98 dB at 1kHz, and harmonic distortion is 0.003% at 1kHz. Some secondary sources list slightly different figures (95 dB S/N and separation, 0.004% THD). The figures above come from the more detailed spec sheet. Wow and flutter is listed as “crystal accuracy,” which reflects the quartz-locked transport.

Owner reports are thin but generally positive. One user on an audio forum chose the CC-4000 after finding a Toshiba changer too “bright” and “harsh” by comparison. Another long-term owner, selling theirs around 2025, called it a “trusty” machine gifted roughly 25 years prior, which fits the March 2000 release date. There is at least one cautionary note. A buyer of the CC4000 OSE variant reported it arriving dead and failing to read CDs out of the box, and speculated about quality issues with Marantz’s China production. A used CC4000 with remote appeared on a Klipsch forum for $60. Service manuals are available for download, and replacement remotes are still sold.

Some things are undocumented: the difference between the CC4000 and CC4000 OSE variants, the DAC chip and transport mechanism details, and any formal press reception. No period magazine review has surfaced in the Archive’s files, so the CC4000’s reputation rests on owner word-of-mouth rather than measured third-party testing.