In 1951, musician and electrical engineer Saul Marantz had a problem with his record collection.

It wasn’t the vinyl themselves that were the issue but, in the middle of the twentieth century, there was no home audio system on the market that matched this perfectionist’s exacting standards. So, trained as a radio technician in World War II, Marantz did what all obsessive inventors do when faced with a problem. At home, he designed and built his own audio system.

The result was the first Audio Consolette, a hand built hi-fi “preamplifier” made with rare high-quality components, encased in a wooden box and fitted with brass screws.

“Marantz essentially started at a kitchen table in New York,” says Joel Sietsema, who runs the luxury audio company today, seventy years after it was founded. The first 100 Audio Consolettes sold out rapidly, and by the late 1950s, Marantz was inventing and selling high-end audio products that are now iconic vintage products.

When Saul developed the Audio Consolette, he began with a clear vision – robust built products that value sound performance as well as aesthetics. “The Consolette and subsequent products led in development by Saul were remarkable because they were created for a clear target customer, not for just anyone,” says Sietsema.

“Our pieces resonate with a certain subset of people who recognise that products cannot be considered good simply because of their sound,” Sietsema adds. “They must be beautiful, enjoyable to use with just the right features (no more, no less), robustly crafted, and stunning performers.”

In the 1960s, this unwavering commitment to quality saw Marantz gain an unusual client: Nasa. During the era of the Apollo missions, which would eventually land humans on the moon, the US space agency needed to track the position of their spacecraft in orbit accurately.

To do so, Nasa built performance tracking stations in remote locations around the world where the skies were clearest and supplied each station with a high-quality power source responsible for precision timekeeping. But as a by-product of their remoteness, the power grids were often very unstable, too much so for the instruments they had. To deal with this, Nasa sought out and selected Marantz’s Model 9 power amplifier, which was extraordinarily stable.

“The Marantz Model 9 … was not prone to oscillation under non-ideal circumstances like the vast majority of other amplifiers of that era (and, even today). Much of the technology that made Marantz amplifiers sound exceptional also contributed to their stability, durability, and suitability for this purpose,” says Sietsema.

The romance of those early days of audio design has led to a fervent market for Marantz products, including those from decades passed. “Most of the vintage Marantz you see today is from the 1970s. Beautifully finished metal front panels, gyroscopic tuning wheel, warmly lit displays, and wood cases are instantly recognisable as Marantz,” says Sietsema. “Every so often, one of the Nasa Marantz Model 9s (the 9120) shows up for sale on eBay or elsewhere. Naturally, due to their rarity, they demand a very high price.”

In the 1970s, the company moved manufacturing to Japan, initiating a 50-year run of elite-level artisanal craftsmanship in a country famed for scientific precision. It was later acquired by Philips in 1980 and was instrumental in the era of the Compact Disc, with the Marantz CD 63 as the first commercially announced CD player in 1982. More recently, 2020 saw the release of the Marantz MODEL 30 and SACD 30n, the first products of the current generation, featuring modern crafted materials, and visual warmth and texture.

“When Saul Marantz first started the company, his key goal was to get people closer tomusic. This was to be achieved by delivering high-performance products with a meticulous build and elegantly timeless design,” says Sietsema. “None of that has changed.”