Marantz NA7004 network audio player

The way we store and listen to our music has changed so much over the past ten years. Since diigtal music first came to us via CD in the 80's, we have embraced smaller and more efficient storage methods over the vinyl of old. Of course, there was a small sacrifice - that slight loss of sound quality that comes with digitizing and compressing music into a digital form, but that sacrifice was increasingly outweighed by the convenience of digital formats.

Nowadays, most people store a significant part of their music collection in a digital format, typically on their home computer so that they can listen to it and download it to their portable music player. Music is often downloaded online directly onto the computer with no physical format...however we still often buy the CD when we want it 'for best'. Why? Well, certainly there is an assurance of having a hard copy, but theres also a significant difference in sound quality between a highly compressed track downloaded online and the format stored on a CD.

This difference has led to may entusiasts avoiding digital storage for hi-fi playback, however as technology advances and we understand more and more how the digital formats work, there is now a move towards developing a high quality home library stored digitally on the home computer. By storing CD's using lossless formats as opposed to 'lossy' MP3 files, music quality is preserved and sound quality is matched to CD.

However - how do you then playback and realise that potential? Well, with the Marantz NA7004 network audio player, you can enjoy the same DAC conversion empolyed in high quality CD players whilst playing back your stored music. The NA7004 occupies a small but very important niche, and one that is likely to grow as we all get more used to the advatanges of digital music storage.

CD's stored on your home computer can simply be streamed effortlessy and decoded as if they were indeed a CD playing back. Sound quality remains exceptionally high, and compared side by side next to a similarly priced CD player, it's hard to judge which is better - both performances are exceptional. The NA7004 offers so much more though - with digital inputs for other devices (including your own CD player), you can connect to your iPhone for playback, or use a USB memory stick. There's an integral radio with DAB, DAB+ and an FM tuner, but don't forget you can also access the internet to use services such as internet radio, Napster and last.fm.

These features take the NA7004 above and beyond a CD player - quick and easy control of your entire music library at CD quality, plus features above and beyond your normal CD player. Is this the future? Well, we think it's still going to take some time for the public to grasp that CD is on it's way out, especially when players such as this do the job better, but certainly this is the first step into the future.