Marantz Sp1200 Loudspeakers, A $50 General Admission Ticket into the World of Hi-Fi

In 1986 Marantz was not the juggernaut of a company that it was in the 1970s, the brand was finding ways to cut costs in their products. As a result of this, they went from being the gold standard in hi-end audio gear, to a cheap department store stereo brand. Most audiophiles are quick to dismiss any piece of gear from the 1980s era of Marantz, so I thought that I would look at this gear objectively and give it a legitimate review.

To start this review, let me take a little trip down memory lane. Ten years ago My parents got me my first turntable, an Audio-Technica At-Lp60, so I dug my Dad's old technics receiver and Bose 141 speakers out of the storage room, and then I was all set to play my records. At the time I thought that this sounded amazing because I was so used to dinky little Ipod earbuds. About a month or two later I was biking around my neighborhood, and I found a garage sale, and there they were. Marantz Sp1200s, at the time I didn't know what Marantz was, I saw them, and they looked big and loud, I wanted them. I asked the guy sitting at the sale, "how much for the speakers?" "fifty" "will you take twenty-five" "okay." And it was done, I lugged them home, I was actually surprised at how light they were at the time, now I know that they are so light because the cabinets are almost completely hollow, and they are made out of flimsy particle board, something only 1980s Marantz would do. You may be wondering if I only paid $25 for the speakers, why did I title this article "A $50 General Admission Ticket into the World of Hi-Fi," well it turned out that 30 year old foam surrounds become brittle and disintegrate. After spinning my favorite LP at full volume just once, the surrounds were toast. After a little research, I discovered what had happened, and I took it upon myself to fix it, That ended up costing me another $25. After I fixed the drivers, and hooked the speakers up to my turntable, and everything changed, I was wrapped up in the world of high fidelity.

Now that my long story is over, let's get into the review. For many years I kept these as my main speakers, and loved them, but as my ears developed I started to hear their shortcomings. Now revisiting these speakers after so long, What do I think? I think that they are a decent pair of speakers, not earth shattering, but by no means a piece of crap. Im not going to get into the debate of what is Hi-Fi, and What is Mid-Fi, but these are somewhere in between, it depends on who you are and what your ears are like. The Sp1200s boast a 12" bass driver, 4" liquid cooled Midrange, and a 3" liquid cooled cone tweeter. This was pretty average of most big box 1980s speakers, but when I took apart the speakers, The bass driver is actually rather hefty, it is not like some of the really cheap speakers of the 1980s that had a 12 inch bass driver, but the magnet was the size of a thumbtack.

The drivers on these speakers have rather substantial magnet, and it shows. The bass on these speakers is powerful and boomy, it can shake your entire house. The midrange doesn't particularly stand out, its not especially detailed, but it isn't objectively bad. The high end however is the most obvious weakness of these speakers, it can be rather harsh at times, and at loud volumes it can get slightly distorted. These speakers are can get very loud with a sensitivity of 91db, they are more than a whisper. The soundstage is not bad on the Sp1200s, they sound very big, the sound fills the entire room. The soundstage in very tall, but lacks in width, and doesn't ever reach behind the listener, the speakers kind of create a wall of sound, unlike some speakers the put you inside the sound. These speakers are not power hogs, I used them with my Denon receiver that outputs 80 watts per channel, and that was plenty of power to drive these speakers. Overall, My final verdict is that these are not bad speakers, I had a pleasant experience listening to them, So although these aren't 1970s Marantz speakers, they aren't as bad as you might think. If this is the only thing that you've got then by all means, enjoy that, don't let anyone tell you that you shouldn't like these.