Thirty years ago, Ronald Reagan was president of the US, Nintendo released the first Zelda video game and Marantz introduced the audio industry’s first ever Special Edition player to the world; the CD-45LE.

Within a fortnight, all 2,000 units were snapped up by music lovers and many people saw the technology as a serious advancement in CD-quality audio standards.

Now, to celebrate its 30th anniversary, Marantz is releasing two new components as part of its 14 Series Special Edition range, which the company says is an advancement for high-resolution file audio such as FLAC, ALAC and DSD.

The new SA-14S1 SE Premium SACD player and the PM-14S1 SE Premium integrated stereo amplifier are fine tuned for high resolution files. The manufacturer has given the series a sleek design with a solid aluminium finish including top-plates and feet. But it is in the performance of these products where the real excitement is.

The PM-14S1 SE is equipped with the same capacitor reservoir as the original KI Peal integrated amp which optimises the oversized Toroidal transformer. So users can feel confident it can produce the power needed to deliver high resolution audio flawlessly. It has optical and coaxial digital input as well as a USB-B port to support 192kHz/24-bit, or with Super Audio CD Format DSD at 2.8MHz and 5.6MHz. It also has the versatility for USB input to play MP3, WAV and AAC as well as music from iPods or phones.

Vinyl fans will be pleased to learn signals from vinyl are carefully handled by the Constant Current Feedback phono equaliser for MM/MC systems. The copper speaker terminals allow powerful signalling to the loudspeakers.

The SA-14S1 SE provides a platform for exquisite CD and SACD sound quality.

QualiFi is ready to bring these high quality audio systems to Australia at the end of August.

“Music lovers will appreciate the fabulous sound quality that hi-res music files offer,” says QualiFi marketing manager Ralph Grundl.

“Our Marantz resellers are able to promote this new music standard in a high-quality consumer electronics brand known for its traditional values and focus on musicality.”