Marantz ZR6001 and ZC4001: Plug and play music

By Andrew Lim on 06 June 2006, 12:50pm

If, like Crave, you're a sound junkie, then getting decent audio around your house is something you take very seriously. Setting up speakers all over your house can be annoying and messy, however. Before you know it, you've got a tangle of wires running up and down the walls of your formerly civilised looking home. Or you can opt for a wireless solution but be prepared to fork out more cash than you'd pay for a holiday to New York.

Fortunately for all you audiophiles, there's an easier and slightly cheaper solution that lets you stream digital sound around your house without needing a degree in engineering. It's called the Marantz Weave system and it uses your home's mains network to pump sound around your house. Using the Weave system you can listen to your DAB radio, CD player, TV, DVD player and anything else that plugs into the amp anywhere in your house that has a mains outlet.

In order to do this, you need to buy the Marantz amp, aka the ZR6001, and one or more Marantz receivers, aka the ZC4001 (pictured). You then plug your media devices into the amp and the receiver will pick up the audio from those devices via the mains.

If you already have Marantz devices with the Weave circuit built into them, you can also use the remote control built into the receiver, or you can just control the amp. This means that unless you have Marantz kit you can't access the remote control functions featured on the receiver (such as moving between tracks), but you can control which device you want to listen to and the volume.

The only niggle we have with the Marantz amp is the seven-channel amplifier, which we think is overkill unless you want to use it for watching a film. The system will also set you back the princely sum of £550 for the amp and £200 for every receiver. This is more expensive than we'd like, but still less expensive than a wireless system. Expect a full review soon. -AL