"Own the very best!"

Updated Jan. 2, 2008

David, I'm just fumbling for what to say to tell you how amazed I am at my Marantz unit after your upgrade. Honestly, I've just sat, kind of stunned, listening to the recordings I know so well but seem never to have heard until now. Instruments are placed now...never understood what THAT meant before. There is clarity, not harshness to older recordings...a bottom, like the floor is there on instrumental recordings, like the Steinway Piano classics boxed set. I'm well passed the 100 hour mark, I'll be in touch for the next few milestones.

A Blessed Christmas and Happy New Year!
Fr. Mike Carroll

My initial impression of my upgraded unit is nothing short of Hallelujah! When I got this unit I figured it was the best one I'd ever have and it sounded better than anything I'd ever owned before. When I unpacked my Marantz today and played Van Cliburn playing the First Piano Concerto of Tchaikovsky, something happened that was a first for me. I felt the music. I didn't just hear it, I felt it. The vibration of the strings in the piano was palpable to me. Next was Renee Fleming singing Bel Canto arias. I've heard that the test of a player is how it handles female vocals. This is where it gets interesting - I listened to the arias and the hairs on my neck stood up. This has only happened when I heard music live in performance. It has never happened to me listening to a SACD. This is as close to live as I've experienced music. Brahms' Ein Deutches Requiem is on now and here again something amazing. I've sung this piece in concert performance. I've heard it at Carnegie Hall and wept at the beauty of it - I had tears in my eyes today. So, out of the box, without being anywhere near burnt in, I'm thrilled by what I'm hearing.

Thank you, David, for the genius of what you do. Your kindness in working with me on price so that I could afford this "magical" transformation is something for which I am profoundly grateful. May God bless you always.

Fr. Mike Carroll