How do you improve a What Hi-Fi Sound & Vision? award-winner? Easy: just continue the same painstaking philosophy of product dedication, keep even the tiniest of details at the top of mind, do everything possible to optimize mechanism & potent power supply, insist on premium digital-to-analogue conversion with CS4398, & ensure a mirrored symmetrical output stage with Marantz-own HDAM-SA2 amplifiers. & when all that is done, check it all again & fine-tune with even more specially selected components. We also added a solid metal bottom-plate & centralised the CD mechanisms location. That is how, for example, we virtually eliminated vibration. In addition, the stable, oversized power supply feeds the digital & analogue circuitry of the player, where the high-quality CS4398 converts digital signals to analogue, this is then pushed to the gold-plated synch outputs by Marantzs own small signal amplifier, the HDAM-SA2. Altogether the CD6004 is a match made in heaven for the music lover who wants nothing but the best performance at an attractive price. & one more thing its also perfect for lovers of portable music, thanks to its iPod-digital connectivity.