£349

Audiolab 6000N

Dali Oberon 1

Marantz CD6006 UK

Marantz PM6006 UK

Strangely, when you consider that this system doesn’t have a turntable in it, it feels a little more old-school in its makeup. There are plenty of people who ditched vinyl long ago, and have no desire to go back, especially when they have invested so much in their digital music collection, in the form of the compact disc. The CD is still going strong, of course, although digital downloads and streaming are without doubt the future of our music sources.

Here, then, we have a fine CD player and amplifier combination and married it with an excellent music streamer so you can have your pick of your collection from the early 80s through to the modern day. And, of course, a pair of speakers that can really do the rest of the system proper justice.

The Marantz pair you see here is, on the face of it, a standard hi-fi system that you might have seen in the 1990s: a CD player and amplifier, paired with some speakers, was pretty much where most recording. The standard player sounds a little blurry and dynamically restrained in comparison. This is the finest CD player at anywhere near the £500 mark.

And there is no better amplification partner for it than its amplifier stablemate. The PM6006 UK Edition has had similar tweakery performed on it for the UK market – and to equally beneficial effect.

Class-leading amplification

If you own the original PM6006, there’s no need to trade it in. But if you’re in the market for a stereo amp, then this is just about the finest performance you’ll get in return for this amount of money.

It’s a characteristically full-bodied and focused Marantz presentation, with plenty of detail to boot. Maybe the most granular textures aren’t so readily on offer – this amp favours a smoother and more wholesome overall tone – but there’s more than enough to dig into without becoming overly analytical or losing any sense of musicality. And musicality is one of the PM6006’S strengths.