Join me as we look at and repair another classic baby amplifier, the Marantz 1030 integrated.
That’s right, it’s baby amplifier time again, and I’ve chosen another little gem, the Marantz 1030. Like the Kenwood KA-4002A I covered last week, the Marantz 1030 was the baby of the Marantz range at the time, but a beauty. This unit was kindly donated by a lovely gentleman whose name I’ve unfortunately forgotten, so if you are seeing this, please leave a comment.
BTW, I recently listed this particular unit in my store. It was quickly reserved by one of my customers – thanks, John!
Baby Amplifiers
I wrote a primer about baby amplifiers in my article on the Kenwood KA-4002A, so you can check that for a quick refresher. In a nutshell, though, I categorise the baby amplifiers I’m interested in as discrete hi-fi stereo amplifiers having 20 Watts per channel or less, and hailing from the era where such things were well-made and repairable.
I’m excluding integrated, midi, music and shelf systems, as these are not considered true hi-fi gear, and modern plastic stuff, as it is designed to be thrown away when it fails. Classic baby hi-fi amplifiers I’ve written about before include the stunning Sony TA-1150D and Sansui AU-101, both of which I will feature here again soon.
Background & Features
The Marantz 1030 integrated amplifier is your classic 1970s baby amplifier, and the smallest from this series by Marantz. That means it is very solidly built, with all metal construction, and no switching power supplies or integrated circuits.
The Marantz 1030 features tone controls, a good, discrete-component phono preamplifier, a headphone socket and even a microphone input for that karaoke goodness. There are also loudness and mono buttons, for a little boost at low listening levels, and for listening to channel balance-challenged or mono recordings. Two sets of speaker terminals and multi-voltage capability round out the feature set of this little gem.
The Marantz 1030 comes from a series of beautiful and highly collectible Marantz models, including many I’ve worked on over the years. There is the slightly more powerful Marantz 1060, for example, one of which I overhauled for a customer only recently:
The ultimate Marantz integrated amplifiers are probably the Marantz PM-8 and the Marantz 1300DC. I’ve worked on a few of each, like this beast:
I know what you’re thinking: Mike, that’s all well and good, that 1300DC is epic, but it’s not a baby amplifier. True. Back to the 1030…
Marantz 1030 Specifications
Courtesy of our friends @ HiFi Engine
Power output: 15 watts per channel into 8Ω (stereo)
Frequency response: 20Hz to 20kHz
Total harmonic distortion: 0.5%
Damping factor: 45
Input sensitivity: 2.1mV (MM)
Dimensions: 14-11/64 x 4-23/32 x 11-1/32 inches
Weight: 16.5lbs / 7.5kg
Year: 1973
Repair & Service
As I mentioned, this Marantz 1030 was donated, and I’m incredibly appreciative of equipment donations like this one. As these pieces often do, she needed TLC and a repair for me to be able to sell her in my store. People sometimes ask if I pay for broken hi-fi equipment, or even functional stuff. The answer, in most cases, is usually not.
Why not? Let’s take this broken Marantz 1030 as an example. She needed deep cleaning, diagnosis and repair of the phono preamp and a full service. When we factor in the two + hours of my time and a handful of parts and consumables needed for the work, plus additional time to photograph and write about the old girl, I might make a hundred bucks on this piece, at the advertised price, if I’m lucky!
So then why do it? Equipment like this deserves to be saved, and – critically – I love saving it, so it feels less like work. Donors are always thrilled to know that their equipment lives again, and her new owner, one of my long-term customers, will love her. I enjoy writing these articles, and I know you enjoy reading them, so I view this almost as hi-fi community service, and a win from every angle.
Every piece saved is a win, and again, my sincere thanks to all who’ve donated equipment over the years. Anyway, this Marantz 1030 needed a deep clean, repair and service. Let’s take a further look.
Results
After a deep clean and some electronic TLC, this little Marantz 1030 purrs once again. The corner damage is unfortunate, but I think the overall, and especially internal, condition is more important. The beauty of this piece is in its functionally perfect and completely original condition.
She’s thankfully not received dodgy repairs, as so many have. She has blemishes common with 50-year-old equipment, but no deep scratches or gouges. The better-than-factory phono preamplifier is a nice bonus for vinyl lovers, thanks to some precision, hand-matched, low-noise transistors 🙂
How does she sound? Lovely, when used as designed. A baby Marantz 1030 integrated amplifier like this one would be perfect in a small, second or older children’s system. As long as the use case is not too taxing, ie no expectation of ear-splitting levels, death metal or driving B&W 801s, there will be no issues.
If considering a small amplifier, I would always recommend something like this Marantz 1030 vs a cheap new amplifier. If you want Bluetooth or streaming, add a Wiim. Doing these things separately is always better. Oh, and the phono preamp, even in this baby amplifier, sounds better than cheap new separate phono preamps costing hundreds.
One must always consider that these pieces may not last forever, but we can give them the best chance at surviving with periodic maintenance. Even at 50 years old, this Marantz 1030 will likely still last longer than most new amplifiers. Why? Because it doesn’t have built-in redundancy in the form of unrepairable boards, chipsets and firmware that are only supported for five years.
Thanks!
As always, thanks for visiting and taking the time to read this article. I hope you enjoyed it and maybe learned something.
If you’d like me to work on your Marantz 1030, 1152DC or any other lovely Marantz piece, don’t hesitate to let me know.
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Hey Mike!
Another nice job and interesting read. Appreciated.
Do you think the bent faceplate corner could be somewhat mitigated by inserting the amp into a nice solid-timber enclosure? I think those surrounds always look superb on these type of amps.
As for baby amps, I guess our Japanese LEBEN CS-300F would qualify, at just 15W output into 4 | 6 | 8 Ohms.
Do you ever seen any LEBEN gear pass through your shop? Do you have any experience with the LEBEN gear?
-Tony (Kiwi, living in China)
Hi Tony, thank you, and this would certainly lift the look! I’d be inclined to gently bend the fascia back into shape and leave her as is, I think. These affordable Marantz products came with a vinyl wrap metal enclosure, a step down from the full wooden enclosure of some of their more expensive models. The Leben certainly is a baby amplifier, but it is tube-based and new, and therefore outside the spectrum of classic gear I typically focus on. Glad you are enjoying this one, however!
Another fun read lovely ’70s baby amp – thanks Mike! Gee that build quality is impressive for so-called bottom of range! Look at those substantial alloy heatsinks on such a low-power amp – much better than I’ve seen on equivalent low-power Rotel and Sansui amps of that era!
(That comment comes from a fan of both those brands.). It’s so good to see old but effective and quality equipment like this gain a second life instead of being stripped or thrown out – well done!
So Mike, by recommending such low-power baby amps, now we need some recommendations from you and readers, please, on suitable high-sensitivity speakers to complement them. Ironically lot of the contemporary speakers for these amps were acoustic suspension designs that tend inherently to lower sensitivity. Cheers,Rob
Thanks Rob, glad you enjoyed this one! Marantz gear from this era is always lovely. High sensitivity speakers are a problem because there are not many of them and they tend to be expensive and outclass these baby amps. I may discuss this in a later article, more to come!