Marantz is back! Or rather, the Marantz styling and champagne finish is back. In the long decade or so of the dominance of black as the accepted finish on high fidelity equipment, owners of older Marantz "champagne finish" gear have languished. They loved their older gear and they were loath to change over to black. Now the "dark ages" could be said to be over and a number of manufacturers are offering equipment in champagne or gold finish.

the big Marantz SR-18 has virtually all features controllable via its equally large remote control. All those buttons light up each time one is pressed. The drop down door on the front panel (see above pic) reveals the headphone socket and the 22 buttons for a range of functions including the tone controls. Note the Aux inputs (and S-video socket) for easy connection of a camcorder. Long-time Marantz fans will love the flywheel tuning knob.

So Marantz should find that this model SR-18 will sell in big numbers. Not only does it have the trademark gold finish but it also has other Marantz styling cues: two big knobs, one at each end, for input selection and a large flywheel knob in the centre of the panel, the so-called Gyro-Touch, for tuning.

About the only thing missing is the little blue scope screen for signal strength and multipath indication. Maybe Marantz will bring that back in a future state-of-the-art FM/AM tuner?

Actually, I have to say that while the various knobs look impressive, they really are a bit superfluous these days now that everything is remote-controlled. Apart from initially turning the unit on, you don’t ever have to touch the SR-18 in normal day-to-day use, any more than you need to touch your TV set to use it – you just point the remote control at it and press a button.

And while some people may hanker for the old-style flywheel tuning for FM and AM stations, it really is a bit pointless once you have all your normal stations programmed in.

Where it is good is when you are occasionally tuning across the dial looking for all those other stations. In fact, if you live within about 200km of Sydney or Melbourne and you have a sensitive tuner, it really is surprising just how many stations are dotted along the FM band.