October 2023

Video: House Of Marantz And Interview With President Joel Sietsema
We join The Listening Chair's Howard Kneller as he attends Marantz' 70th Anniversary celebration.
Photos And Videos By Howard Kneller

  Within these two videos, Howard Kneller, co-founder of The Listening Chair, takes us along on his two-day visit to the House of Marantz event, which was held in July of this year to celebrate the company's 70th anniversary. For almost the past twenty years, Howard has worked as a reviewer, columnist, and/or photographer for a variety of audiophile publications. Last year, Howard joined forces with well-respected audio journalist Colin Saunders to start an audiophile YouTube channel called The Listening Chair with Howard Kneller. Since that time, they have been joined by numerous other reviewers based around the U.S. and world, including industry veteran Kemper Holt.

The Marantz event was held at Spring Studios, located in the Tribeca part of Manhattan, New York. It featured a 7000 square-foot interactive, immersive exhibit center and a rooftop VIP party. The exhibit center housed a theater where presentations were given by a variety of guest speakers, a specially constructed listening room, a museum that showcased Marantz's history and product lineage, a headphone audition station featuring Marantz electronics and headphones from its sister company, Denon, and a Vinyl Me Please record store.

In the first video, Howard visits with Marantz's historian, who provides a guided tour of the museum and provides interesting information on numerous rare, vintage Marantz components. In the second video, Howard speaks with Marantz' President, Joel Sietsema, who discusses everything from the company's new products to collaborations with automobile companies, digital versus analog music reproduction, and physical media versus streaming.

The Listening Chair
See their YouTube channel here.