Marantz CD5400 (2003–)
The Marantz CD5400 is a budget CD player that Marantz released in October 2003. It sold for ¥27,000 in Japan and later showed up in Europe at around €279. It was a low-cost player, but it borrowed technology from the company's Super Audio CD development. Marantz's own literature described it as incorporating as much SACD-derived know-how as possible.
The D/A converter is a Cirrus Logic CS4392, a 192 kHz/24-bit chip that Marantz also used in its DV8400. The player handles CD-R and CD-RW discs. It has a dot-matrix display that can show CD-TEXT, plus a display-off function for anyone who wants a dark front panel while listening. There is a headphone jack with level adjustment, and the supplied wireless remote can be enabled or disabled.
Pitch control is an unusual feature on a budget deck. Playback speed can be shifted by ±12% in 1% steps. The remote has a Quick Replay button that jumps back ten seconds and replays. The usual functions are all here too: random, program, repeat (all/one/A-B), AMS intro scan, edit, and peak search. You get one optical and one coaxial digital output, alongside the unbalanced analog pair (2.0 Vrms).
Specifications as documented: frequency response of 2 Hz–20 kHz, dynamic range of 100 dB or better, signal-to-noise ratio of 110 dB, channel separation of 100 dB at 1 kHz, and harmonic distortion of 0.0025% at 1 kHz. The player draws 13 W and 0.8 W in standby. Dimensions are 440 × 89 × 317 mm (17.3 × 3.5 × 12.5 in) and it weighs 3.7 kg.
Owner reports are generally positive, and several mention the CD5400's strong error correction and disc reading. One forum comparison against the NAD C541 found the C541 had more impactful bass, while the NAD revealed finer detail on some material. At least one forum commenter observed that the CD5400 "seems to be 2 different breeds," which suggests internal variants exist beyond the standard model. A YouTube reference to a "CD5400 Original Special Edition" hints at the same thing. The record does not say whether these are regional builds, running changes, or a separate OSE trim. A "Marantz CD-5400" (hyphenated) service manual listing appears to be a typo for the same model, not a distinct product.
Past the October 2003 release and the specifications above, the historical record is thin. No period magazine reviews have surfaced in the Archive's files, no production end date is documented, and nothing is known about manufacturing location or common failure modes.
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