Under Nippon Hifi, Jani Leppälammi acts as Soulnote's Finnish importer and doubles as brand ambassador/sole distributor to Europe. It was in his latter role that he contacted our obscure Geneva hifi embassy for some unilateral talks on Soulnote's global visibility. Actually, he simply wrote in requesting a review on their new SD300 headphone amplifier. As he explained, until now this brand under the leadership of Mr. Norinaga Nakazawa, president of the CSR Group, hadn't really pursued European reviewers from their end. With my Swiss residence outside the EU, he'd now get Koki-san in Japan to handle my review loaner directly so he wouldn't need to hassle with customs. To learn more about the brand, I foraged through Jani's English pages. Here one learns that Nakazawa's career began at the Standard Radio Corp. where he was an R&D engineer on early tape recorders and players. In 1971, Superscope, then part owner of Marantz, acquired a 50% stake in Standard Radio Corp. Now they were tasked with R&D on mid-level components and receivers. By 1975, the company had changed its name to Marantz Japan Inc. By 1980 Superscope sold off some overseas assets plus the IP rights and sales division of Marantz to Phillips Corp. in Holland. Nakazawa was instrumental in the development of their Marantz CD63; involved with the Phillips LHH100, a 2-chassis CD player; the LHH500, the first 1-bit player; the AV1000 two-chassis AV controller/amp and much more.


Yet what had been an attractive partnership for our engineer because Phillips took Marantz upmarket eventually diluted. Marantz left Phillips to become part of D&M Holdings Inc. instead which had also absorbed Denon. Here the bottom line became more important than technical innovation. Nakazawa exercised a management buy-out to create his new company, CSR Inc. 50 engineers accompanied him. The Soulnote brand is the outcome of his departure from Marantz and his attempt to resurrect that company's original focus. Whilst newer in name, Soulnote has a 40-year+ legacy of extensive experience behind it. The name itself is suggestive of a committed return to Norinaga Nakazawa's core values. Marantz reborn without the bean counters?