MARANTZ TT15S1 TURNTABLE REVIEW 

I hear you, and I have many means to properly adjust a cartridge, matter of fact vinyl engine has where you can plug in a tone arm into its search engine and get protractors for that particular arm. That said though I mounted the cartridge talked about in the video using the included instructions, I didn't have any Mistracking or issues at all. Matter of fact I tried to align it to the Stevenson curve initially And I could get it to adjust out fine however there was quite a bit of inner groove distortion. So I just realigned it according to the manual and as I've said I didn't have any problem. Matter of fact with the elimination of the inner groove distortion, aligning it according to the manual resulted in better sound staging and left to right separation, better tonal purity and delicacy, just better all around. Sorry you had issues, perhaps it was your cartridge. Whether you know it or not I've discovered over the last 15 years of being in hi-fi that some cartridges prefer certain alignments over others. I know people always talk about alignments from a tone arm perspective, but I always try out every permutation when I set up a cartridge, just for fun and just to see what sounds best. Anyway thanks for watching and thanks for commenting

@@Audiorevue I am referring to the Clearaudio Virtuoso cartridge provided with the TT, if you follw manual instruction you get a way off alignment. The Clearaudio Satisfy tonearm aligns according to Baerwald. As I can see in the video, you are using a different cartridge, and it was not my intention to criticize your ability to properly align cartridges. By the way, the motor of mine doesn't get hot during heavy use, it's kust a very little warm. Sory for my rusty English, but English is not my mother toungue

@@sgnifi Great,though i didnt take it that way.thats goofy really and the first im hearing about it. i mean to include the cart and have it be misaligned when a new user sets up the table,thats ridiculous. but thanks for adding something worthwhile to the video,it means alot,truly.

@@Audiorevue I am with you, the incorrect information in the manual is due to the fact that the first version of the TT had a shorter headshell, and Marantz never corrected the issue. If you do a search on hifi forums you will find a lot of owners of this TT pointing out the problem. Anyway, enjoy the TT I am sure it will give you years of exciting listenings

Yeah that makes a lot of sense, like I said that information really adds something to the quality of the video and I appreciate it.

Well I sort of agree about project, in the sense that I think at a certain budget it's a decent turntable however above A few hundred dollars I would definitely go with something else. You know to be honest with you technics makes a great deck, and they make a very worthwhile machine in the sense that it's an item that is effectively going to last forever almost and continue to work. That said I would make the claim that I'm kind of in the reverse of your opinion, with the idea of belt drive versus direct. Some of the best sound I've ever heard out of a turntable has been with belt drives, and I've heard high-end direct drive turntables. There's a reason companies like VPI and others will offer a direct drive model but their top models are always belt drive. Getting to the Marantz while the nitpicking aspect of the motor getting hot could theoretically be an issue, I haven't noticed any problems with it so far. Plus the fact that it comes from clear audio a German company makes me think that with the legendary status of German engineering that they know what they're doing. That said over something like a project or a Rega, the Marantz is far and away a more higher end product and you can tell when you use it that it's a more higher-end product. There's no chintzy cheap tone arm lift or anti-skate or anything, literally everything you touch and use from the platter to the belt to the motor pulley to the tone arm, hell even the power switch, everything feels like a premium product, and it makes you feel like you got your money's worth and that this is a product that's going to withstand the test of time. And that plays out too, the tt15 has been out for a while now and if you go on the forums and look around the internet and look at what people have to say after having it for years, theirs are still working and theirs are still going and they're playing records on them everyday. Anyway thanks for the comment I appreciate it and thanks for watching

@@Audiorevue The beltdrive VS. Direct drive war has always been there, and it will always be. Anyway during the last 25 years in this hobby I have seen and heard many tables. I agree Rega and Marantz being superior to Pro-Ject. I have had turntables like Yamaha P-500 and Marantz TT-2200 and never had problems with noises from Plinth or platter, and wow and flutter being very low. Thought what's common with these old Japan made direct drive decks is the cold and sterile sound compared to Rega, Pro-ject, Marantz, etc. When looking the specs of belt driven tables wow and flutter are almost always higher. Thought some say that anything under 0.1% is ok. And I kinda agree that specs are not everything when it comes to good sound. When it comes to tuning turntable plinth, it is kinda a higher art. The laws of physics say the vibration is always there, but what you can do is you can tune it to be, on a higher or lower frequency, and if you use higher you get a colder sound and the other way. This cold sound is usually considered to be the neutral and analytical one when the warmer sound is the more ''Musical'' one. I in no way meaned to Mock the Marantz table, it is a nice one, must be a very analytical sounding table being made from very dense acrylic having a higher frequency of vibration than more cheap and popular MDF. I kinda think this kind of audiophile jargon is fun Have fun with your Turntable.

@@whittiertennyson6297 I wouldn't use the word analytical when describing the sound, it certainly isn't a warm sounding table but I would use the word neutral. To me analytical insinuates this sense of a piece of gear picking apart the music to the point where you lose its cohesiveness and what you're left with is just individual parts, you kind of lose the musical intent and you can't see the forest through the trees kind of thing. And by the way Marantz doesn't make this turntable, there's absolutely nothing about this turntable that is manufactured by the company we know as Marantz. This turntable was made in Germany by a company called clearaudio. If you're unfamiliar with that company then I suggest you go looking them up because they make very very lovely turntables and some very expensive ones as well, but that's beside the point. Essentially Marantz contacted clearaudio to have them produce this turntable for them, and if you dig deeper you'll see that clearaudio used to make a model called the emotion which is basically the exact same design as the tt15. It's just simply been rebranded with slightly different aesthetics.

@@Audiorevue Analytical neutral whatever these words are often used in wrong places like with AKG 701 headphones neutral was same as no bass hahahaha But without being neutral there cannot be enough detail. Of course too much of anything is always too much, too much bass, too much treble it always spoils the sound. Yes I know Clearaudio, Marantz has also been produced by CEC and Micro Seiki in the past, Marantz TT1000 made by Micro Seiki is a true audiophile classic. CEC mostly made basic but good consumer players for many different brands during late 70's to mid 80's. I also have to make clear I'm not here to compete who is wrong and who is right. Most people settle for much less than the small group of audiophiles anyway.

@@whittiertennyson6297 you know the more and more I hear you talk the more I can't help but feel reminded of someone who just has to be right. Someone who's made a choice about something and they'll use any sort of logic to internalize and rationalize that choice regardless of whether it's right or wrong or true or false. A person who can't see past their own logic and instead wield it as a weapon, as a blunt-edged device designed to bludgeoned any who dare claim otherwise. Furthermore those people use that logic as a means to hold themselves to a higher standard, to a better standard, one in which they are always right and regardless of the validity and evidence of differing statements and opinions, their rightness is paramount and unimpeachable. I'll say it again thanks For the comment and thanks for watching have a good day.

@@michaelvincent8306 no I disagree, I think Rega turntables strike a great balance between emphasizing poor recordings or not emphasizing poor recordings. This Marantz on the other hand is an example of emphasizing pull recordings, I don't mind it, because my associated equipment is more warm and forgiving sounding so it kind of offsets it a little. But honestly I'd rather have a turntable that's does emphasize it because then you have the possibility of either having it or not you know what I mean. Where with something like your Technics it's something you can't turn off. That's not a criticism of the Technics, I think they make fine turntables and I've heard a number of their newer higher end models

Yeah it's definitely a different look but I think most importantly is it's well made, the only thing that I didn't mention in the video that's kind of funky is the fact that the spindle for the record hole is a little bit fatter than on a lot of turntables I've used. So that means when you put a record on a lot of times you've got to force that thing on there which truthfully I don't like doing, that's probably why clear audio sell a tool that will enlarge record spindle holes

@@Audiorevue Having to push the record on there like that? I've never heard of that one lol.

Well it's either the spindles a little bigger than normal or records are coming with smaller holes

@@Audiorevue Yea, I'm pretty sure you're right with the spindle being a bit bigger. Must be a bit of a non-standard size. Tough to say. Or they just want that record super tight on there.

@@brydon10 yeah and you get a sense of that when you stick a record on and by the way it's not with every record, cuz you know I'm sure you know that not every record has the same size hole even though they're supposed to