Twoleftears,
Guess you never listened to an Esoteric player. Are you going to trash one of the Highest end players on the planet if not THE best player because it has 8 Filters to choose from?
Marantz SA-10 arriving Monday!
I've been hearing and reading all I can about this player during this last year. I have a 6005 right now and it's a nice player but not as good as my analog rig (10k) so it's not a fair comparison. Elizabeth mentioned that her SA-10 is better than her analog. I will be comparing the 2 SACD players side by side. I have at least 3 CD's in which I have duplicates. I'm fascinated about how the circuitry upsamples to DSD SACD. Well not exactly but somehow an improvement over Redbook CD. I have a 2" thick maple block coming in the same day for it. It's going to be a long weekend. I know it can't work miracles on all CD's. If there is jitter in the recording then supposedly you will never get that out. Speak up if I'm wrong about that.
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Hry shadow cat. Room adjustments are many times can be a bigger jump in equipment. I almost got the 14s1 last year but settled for the 8005 until finances would allow. I had a chance to buy an Sa10 for $4400 Last year and just couldn't do it at the time. The seller offered it to me at the low price because of an inferior product he sold me 15 years ago I think. I won't say who he is but he is one of the good ones left |
@riaa... etc. Hey rhea, no trashing going on. More of an abstract musing on how designers conceive of what they're doing and what their goals are. Before some DACs had filters, there were those cubes that came with B&W, KEF, etc. That always irritated me too. If the correct sound was *with* the cube, why were the cubes optional? If the cube exaggerated the bass, why were they available at all. I suppose one could make an argument about different rooms acoustics, but those cubes were hardly a Lyngdorf. |
astru"I believe the point of the settings is that the PCM format is not lossless, and Marantz provides the option to play with different settings because there is no agreed way to reconstruct the original acoustic signal." You do not know what you are talking about PCM audio is a clearly established, defined and standardized format there is absolute, complete, and universal agreement about how to recover an analog signal from a PCM data stream and this recovery can be done as has been demonstrated completely error free so it is absolutely bit-perfect "lossless" and there is no debate, uncertainty, or alternative to this scientifically developed protocol so you might want to check your research, references, and facts. |
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Elizabeth, take a look at page 8, bottom of the middle section. They use the word "phase" for polarity. However, all you need to know if that the unit comes wired with pin 2 hot (+) and pin 3 cold (-), as I posted in my previous message. I do not know the XLR polarity setting for Bryston BP-26; the Luxman C900u in my system allows to set the polarity for each input and for the output. @clearthink: I have a PhD in engineering; the Redbook standard does not provide a guarantee for reconstructing perfectly the original acoustic signal |
Elizabeth, I mistyped something in my previous message. I meant to say "is that the unit" rather than "if that the unit". I am just trying to clarify the meaning of those Marantz settings. Clearthink, can you enlighten us with an explanation for bit-perfect acoustic waves? After that, we should get the discussion back on track to Marantz SA-10. This thread should be for people who own the player, had some experience with it, or may be interested in knowing more about the experience of those first two types of people. |
It was a real bummer when Sony decided to stop supporting the big SACD players that they produced in the late 90's. I bought one of them. At the time, I thought it was great that "Sony" got into the fray with high end because certainly, they will support the product for years and not go belly up. Well, we all know that transports for those two units are gone as is hope for their future. What to do? Will Marantz fair better? Joe |
Worse case scenario lets say 10 years from now my transport dies. I hope streaming units will have become user friendly and the sound quality will far surpass what we have now on Redbook CD. By that time I will be able to copy all my CDs with a super sophisticated quantum DAC that can decompress the horrid recordings of this decade. And maybe give it something a little extra in the resolution department. Im a little uncomfortable using ny transport all the time like Elizabeth warns, just how long does a top quality transport last anyway????? My Shanling T200 from 03 started giving me trouble reading discs about 8 years ago and got to the point 2 years ago where 90 percent would not decode. Shanling stopped supporting this unit years ago. I just hope Marantz is a more customer friendly company. I still wish it would work because after the Parts Connexion mod it was very musical. In some ways more than the Marantz. Fast bass attack. The midrange was more forward and that's not a bad thing for rock music. It now sits over on a shelf on top of my records.. I don't want to take it to the dump. Amazingly it will still play a Mamas and Papas remasted by Steve Hoffman. That is the only CD that it has consistently been playable without having to load it a dozen times. I will drag it out one day again. I will see. I'm happy with tbe SA-10. Its a keeper and have it well insured and an updated security system with cameras. They will have to take it out of my cold dead hands. Lol |
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Good point well taken. I dry brush every record before I drop the needle. All records vacuum cleaner, stored in plastic sleeves with album jackets. I clean all CDs too but not before playing. My Marantz has been skipping about every 30 hozrs of playing. The CD only loses a sec or two. The 8005 I had for 15 months never skipped. Will this get worse????? Like my Shanling not being able to read discs less and less. I remember In 05 it started having trouble reading SACDs I might have to give it 3-6 reloads but it would go. It would never play Tommy. When I had to have it serviced up North around 05. The Yankee said if it doesn't play or has trouble playing a disc now and then don't worry. It was only SACDs at that time. If I had made him fix it while they still had replacement parts it would be working today!!!! Thanks for your professional opinion whoever you were. I hope you read thus post. Hey doctor it hurts when I move my arm a special kind of way. WELL DONT MOVE IT THAT KIND OF SPECIAL WAY!!! NEXT. |
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I think the headphone jack on the SA-10 us dandy. Detailed and what Rain man might say, "sparkly". I still like the filter one setting and factory default on the other settings. I just out the new Zaolla silverline balanced interconnects on the 14b3. Music has a little more zip and excitement but leans a little to the edgy side. I know silver can be brutally revealing bring out a components weakness. Music has a little more impact and that is expected since silver is a faster conducter. The KGACs were fast and some songs that start out woukd actually jolt me a little. I finally gave up on them because they were to revealing to the older equipment I had. I wish I had kept them but hey trade in for new toys is the game. I did burn them in for a week in my cable cooker and that helped. I hope the Zaollas break in and mello some. I stay on the filter 1 setting. I still use the factory default settings on the other sound shaping options. This player is the bomb. It decodes a fantastic digital signal into a lush landscape of sonic pleasures. With that said, however I'm not retiring my TT. |
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bluerangerMuch Thanks! for providing your thoughts/impressions on the SA-10.The hope lies in Marantz learning from Sony/Philips on "not" what to do on their Reference spinners. Keep all marketing tactics in place for entry, mid and highest end players. Additionally, reach out and touch this company w/ an email or phone call expressing your pleasure with their Digital products. Inquire about their intentions to stock essential/critical parts as well. Happy Listening! |
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@elizabeth do you have isolation transformer or other power conditioning device in your system? I use Torus AVR30 wall mount (I live in 240V country). It was only after I have the SA-10 I know the true capability of my system. My SA-10 is in its second week. I don't think the break in has completed but it's sounding better and better. In my experience, playing discs directly using SA-10 transport gives the best results followed by a high-performance USB thumb drive. My hard disk player (Sony HAP-Z1ES) is not up to the standard of SA-10. While the Sony supports gapless playback in all formats, the sound is inferior when using SA-10 USB Audio input. I think to get the best from USB Type B input, need a much better player/streamer costing close to SA-10. I wish SA-10 supports gapless playback when playing from USB drive. Right now it mutes with relay clicks at the beginning of each track which is annoying. I hope Marantz will fix this through firmware upgrade. |
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elizabeth, it is a well know issue for SA-10 when playing from USB thumb drive. please see the 2nd paragraph from the link below: http://help.nativedsd.com/handling-and-playing-dsd-files/file-management/creating-a-gapless-playback... I just hope Marantz will fix this. |
I'm trying to get more into classical music with the SA-10 in the house. I scored yesterday at a thrift store going out of business. 25 cent CDs!!!! I bought 20 classical titles. Strauss, Horowitz, with Telarc and Grammaphone for the labels. I love the sounds of the orchestra for a change. I don't see how a record could sound any better with some of these. The better the recording. The better your system will sound. Didn't mean to de rail the thread here. |
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Well over a hundred hours. Got it July 30th. It's been running 80 percent of the time. I've been out recovering from surgery since June 29th. Listening maybe 4-6 hours a day. It's sound is captivating. It will draw you in. I found myself listening to the same CD twice in a row many times. The sound just makes listening pleasurable. I tried some badly made discs and even though it didn't transform them it took a large part of the stridency out. An example of some great discs are Victory at Sea by Telarc is awesome. The Theme from Shaft (80s version) is also superb. |
2nd Note; feel free to list your system gear, like Elizabeth, so that those of us who search for a demo can have a running list of brands that are sonic matches with this very special player. Due to its price, there will be a limited audience and or interest from the majority of the audiophile community. Additionally, there is a small niche' of us who own massive CD, SACD collections that continue to grow every year. This is not a bad thing at all. Happy Listening! |
