The Marantz UD8004 features quite some of the technology coming from the UD9004 top model. The latter one was crowned to be an absolute recommended buy by our editorial board a few months ago. The sound- and image reproduction of the UD9004 can be up until this day considered as reference material. Marantz succeeded in building a comparable device in a smaller casing at a lower price with the UD8004 Blu-ray/CD/Super Audio CD/DVD-player. Although it may not be the ‘beast’ his bigger brother is it does deliver comparable, impressive performance. It is really a Universal player giving reference quality when playing standard CDs, DVDs and Blu-Ray discs.
The big small brother UD8004
The remote controllable Profile 2.0 player offers everything you can expect from a high end blu-ray player. His absolute video-integrity guarantees state of the art Blu-Ray images and it even improves the quality of your DVDs thanks to the top of the line Anchor Bay ABT2015 video scaler. The newly developed and patented transport reads discs with high accuracy and precision. The tray is made of a polymere-compound that offers a ultra stiff platform and eliminates any vibrations that could deteriorate the sound or video.
The transport is equally important in delivering the impressive sound quality offered by the UD8004. Audio is taken care of by three seperate boards using current feedback technology, all three individually supplied of power by their own transformer. 192 kHZ/24-bit Burr Brown DACs are used, combined with symmetrical circuit layout using short, mirrored signal paths for a precise stereo image. Also used is Marantz’ own HDAM-SA2 signal amplifiers, specifically designed and selected components to get to the gold plated outputs. The ‘Pure Direct’ mode enhances the sound even further by disabling any unnecessary electronics that may affect the audio signal. The new M1 design uses a front panel that is made out of a combination of aluminium and composite material and matches the other components in the Marantz-range perfectly. The double layered chassis and double layered top plate guarantee an excellent stiffness of the entire device which aids in minimalising vibrations. This creates a ultra stable image and uninterfered audio reproduction.
The UD8004 has a HDMI 1.3a output with 36 bit Deep Color support. With profile 2.0 all BD-Live features can be explored with ease. The built in decoders for the High Definition formats such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD can convert all recent formats into excellent sound. The player also features 24fps compatibility to ensure the right framerate for your Blu-Ray disc. The list of features continues with the addition of an SD card reader, compatible with SD-HC, allowing the playing of WMA, MP3, AVCHD and JPEG. If that wasn’t enough, Marantz made it a true multiformat player by adding support for SACD and DVD Audio.
