Marantz ULS383 (1998)
The Marantz ULS383 is a compact multimedia speaker system from 1998. It picked up USB audio before most of the industry had figured out what to do with it. It was a 2-way bass-reflex bookshelf design rated at 15W + 15W, with a frequency response of 60 Hz to 20 kHz. The headline feature was the built-in USB DAC, which ran at a 55 kHz sampling rate. That is an unusual figure, even for the time. The system also had ASC (automatic standby control) for power saving, plus Editable Surround and DBB (Dynamic Bass Boost) processing. It ran off a 10.5V DC adapter, weighed 3.9 kg, and measured 140 x 270 x 187 mm per speaker. It was priced at ¥24,800 for a pair at release.
Some Japanese forum chatter suggests the ULS383 was also sold as the Philips DSS350, though no formal source documents that connection. One owner noted the unit was "full digital" for its era. Another remarked that it was "a bit awkward to use". That fits early USB audio, which often needed specific drivers and finicky setup on Windows 98-era machines.
Beyond these details, the record is thin. No THD, S/N ratio, or sensitivity figures have surfaced. Driver sizes, crossover points, and the exact input layout (beyond USB and DC input) are undocumented. The ULS383 appears to have been a niche experiment - Marantz applying its audio heritage to the nascent PC speaker market - rather than a long-running product line. There's no production end date on record, and no meaningful secondary market data has emerged.
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