Marantz CD-11

As the 1990s approached, Marantz Japan (and therefore Philips) thought of making things a bit simpler. Or almost.
Marantz was then building for Marantz worldwide, Philips Japan (under the Philips name), Marantz Japan and Philips worldwide, this assured some duplicatas, lineup doubling, rarities and limited editions... which aren't really limited.

There isn't much of a true Limited Edition in the CD-11 : it was no more than a regular japanese Philips LHH being exported outside its homeland. Namely the LHH700, introduced in Japan in 1989 and which wasn't a "limited edition" at all.

The front of the CD-11 bears no "LE" sign : it is an added sticker at the back that says so - limited editions are generally much louder about themselves ;-)
Only the badge, model scripting and color differ between the two versions : champagne for the exported Marantz, light grey for the original Philips.

Since all of these were made for Philips (for the japanese market) or Marantz (for the export market), none of them are mentioned in the Marantz Timeline where we are to jump directly from the CD-80 and CD-94's late versions to the CD-15.

With the more common and lower-end Marantz CD-10 (aka Philips LHH300B) and the earlier Marantz CD-12 (aka Philips LHH1000), the CD-11 is the only LHH which made it directly outside Japan in their original form - pity we didn't get the LHH900...

Electronics-wise, Bitstream still was passed as a high-end alternative when it originally was planned as a low-end solution.
D/A is here done in DAC7 mode by two TDA1547 (and therefore four d/a lines) in parallel with an SM5803AP digital filter.
Outputs are FET-buffered, balanced outputs are transformer-balanced and everything but the toroidal transformer and diecast sideburns is copper-plated.

Best of all, and what makes the CD-11 a keeper, the drive itself is a Philips CDM-4MD so if you don't like Bitstream (or early Bitstream), you can always use an external d/a while enjoying for a few decades (half of -) the CD-11.



Nudies aplenty of the 11LE here.
A chronology of the Philips LHH CD players which use the CDM4MD (CDM4/36) here. Do browse the rest of the website for other japanese CD players centered around the Philips CDM drives like Micro and all other Marantz and CDM1 & CDM4 repair procedures !
And the "LE" in LE here.