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.
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
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
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.
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
Decoding perfectly is one thing. Carrying an undistorted signal through the analog chain is another. Digital noise is rather nasty and filters don't seem to get alk of it out. My Marantz manual suggests turning off the display, digital outs and the headphone amp!
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.
@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.
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
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?
Kind of in the same boat............I live rural, maybe two hours from decent audio salons in either Baltimore or DC, so my experience is primarily based on my experience. No audiophile friends, music lovers yes, audiophiles no. Picked up a Marantz SA14s1 a few weeks ago..............love it, probably my last CD player. I'd read Elizabeth's experience with her SA-10, but that one is a bit out of my range, so the 14s1 is about as good as I'm gonna get in this lifetime, but hey, it's pretty damn good :).........As an aside, I'm still finding ways to make my "room/setup" better. Surprising just how much performance you can squeeze out of the room itself with a little patience.......and little or no money :)
You
are saying that a discrete encoding using 16-bit resolution at 44KHz
sampling rate of continuous signals from 0 to 20KHz is not lossless?
No, not at all. As I said:
PCM is very much a lossless format.
That doesn't mean PCM is perfect. But all audio formats are subject to limited bandwidth and various distortions, to some extent. But no, 16/44 PCM is not a lossy format.
You are saying that a discrete encoding using 16-bit resolution at 44KHz sampling rate of continuous signals from 0 to 20KHz is not lossless? You get quantization errors + you are guaranteed not to be able to recover perfectly the high frequencies. Please "unconfuse" me.
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. None of those settings work for DSD, which has "enough" resolution. In fact, I plan to try finding out which combination of settings on PCM comes as close as possible to DSD by using hybrid discs - but that’s a pretty substantial effort (for long winter evenings), and it will be recording-dependent most likely.
Elizabeth, if your unit is made for the US market then the XLR polarity follows the US standard: pin 2 is hot and pin 3 is cold. You should not reverse it. (BTW, phase and polarity are different things.) Also, except for dither, there is no "Off". You may keep Marantz default settings, but those do not provide the highest SNR, as they documented in the manual.
All these different setting combinations seem to me like a cop-out on the part of the designer. Surely the goal is to design and manufacture a machine as faithful to the original signal as possible; one presumes one setting combination comes closer to that than all the others. Their inclusion seems like putting a parametric equalizer on a preamp.
I do not see any new firmware for SA-10 on the Marantz website. Could you please elaborate on the firmware?
I got to play a little bit with the sound settings. (I can confirm that they only work on CD/PCM signal and not on SACD/DSD signal.) Some findings (in my system and to my ears): Filter 2 sounds more natural overall, with better instrument attack. Although they say it would be brighter than Filter 1 and I complained about some brightness, I do not find that to be true in my system; maybe a little bit the opposite. Filter 1 increases the sound density; to a degree, it sounds more pleasant, but I feel that it is a coloring of the sound. I ended up keeping the Dither 1 setting, but it was difficult to make a difference/choice between 1 and Off; setting 2 was not to my liking. I changed NoiseShaper to setting 4th-1. I do agree that the sound stage seems a little tighter with 3th-1, especially by pinpointing vocals, but my Luxmans and the KEFs are already doing a fantastic job with the sound stage and I preferred the slightly perceived increase in overall sound definition of 4th-1. These findings may be highly dependent on the source. My test discs were: - Diana Krall: Turn Up the Quiet - Katty Perry: MTV Unplugged - Adam Cohen: We Go Home - Dorati/London Symphony: Enesco’s Romanian Rhapsody 1 and Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies 1-6 (I can see some people preferring Filter 1 on this CD because instruments sound a little richer with that setting)
@roxy54 I started with Ayon CD-07, then tried Sony HAP-Z1ES internal DAC, not happy as Ayon sounds better. Both of them use Burr Brown 1796 DAC. Then I purchased Denafrips Terminator R2R DAC 4 months ago, using Sony as a player with USB Audio connection.
@milpai@jafant thanks. yes I plan to share comparison of my digital gears.
A few things I found out during the first day of use. I’ve tried USB A and B inputs, coax not yet. SA-10 sounds the best when I play CD or SACD using its transport.
When playing from USB thumb drive (SA-10 USB A input), it must be formatted as FAT32. For sizes > 32GB, it needs to be formatted using third party utilities, not Windows. 1 problem with playing from USB thumb drive is that SA-10 does not support gapless playback. There is relay click between each file/track.
I tried Sony HAP-Z1ES hard disk player into SA-10 USB B input. No problem with gapless playback. Curious USB Cable is used. I still don’t understand why it sounds inferior compared to playing CD/SACD directly on SA-10. I also purchase high res music online and save into Sony’s HDD so this is something I need to fix.
When I first got mine it was a wake up moment. I was very impressed with the player however after extended listenings its not going to replace my vinyl rig. Its really good digital. A big leap. However it does not always have the detail archival as my TT.
I received my Marantz SA-10 today after 3 weeks wait. Out of the box, it terminated my vinyl rigs and DAC. I never know my system can sound that good; very high resolution, precise imaging, and good layering. I am hearing a lot of things I never heard before. Listening to SA-10 becomes addictive...
I am baffled by what d2girls said too. Could you please clarify? It would have made some sense if the statement were that it uses a new disc transport just developed by Marantz and there may be some issue or at least lack of data with that; thus, it may be better to use it only as a DAC. The DAC is what supposedly makes this player special.
With the Oyaide frame (bought on eBay from Japan and possibly fake) out, most of the brightness is gone. Jacintha's Moon River and Here's To Life became enjoyable again, for example. However, I hope the SA10 still needs break-in because her voice is not as in-the-room/unplugged
as with the Sony. Everything else is arguably better, from pinpoint imagining to instruments being more fleshed out and more natural sounding, with better decays. I just need female vocals to become a tad more natural sounding to love this player.
Thank you, Elizabeth and Blueranger! I know exactly what you are talking about. However, in my system, the only two new changes are the SA10 replacing the XA5400ES and the addition of an aluminum/carbon outlet frame on the main outlet. I installed the dedicated line 7 years ago and terminated it at the time with an Oyaide R1 cryo outlet. That outlet powers two Furman Reference PCs, one for the amp, preamp, and CDP, and one for the subwoofer and some video components. The other thing I can think of is that the SA10’s output level is higher than the Sony’s, so the preamp volume is now in a different range than it used to be (and that may mean for Luxman’s LECUA that it uses electronics/paths that have not been used much); still, I do not remember this type of brightness when the preamp was breaking in.
When I ran a new dedicated line my system was not sounding the best for a while. My players chassis is damped and isolated with brass cones, maple block and rubber cork blocks on the bottom. Maoleshade system. I think that helps
Thank you for the fast reply! I thought the filters only work for CDs and not for SACDs. I am using a Wolff Carbon PC, so that should not be the issue. However, one other change that I made with the arrival of the SA10 is that I installed an Oyaide WPC-Z mounting frame with carbon plate on the outlet for the dedicated power line. I can only hope that is the source for the brightness. I have to add the Sony back and A/B test, and remove the new outlet frame. I will post the findings.
I haven't noticed any shrill except for a couple of days the AC was out. I had a Sony XA5400ES 5 years ago and this flat out beats it. Give it another 100 hours and use a good power cord. Try the filters too. Good luck
I got a Marantz SA10 last week, and I only have about 50 hours on it. While it is better in most respects than the Sony XA5400ES and XA9000ES that I also own, it exhibits a brightness that is quite annoying. Many female voices present a brightness/grain that was absent from Sony’s rendering (especially on SACDs). For example, Jacintha’s voice is super smooth, detailed, and beautiful on Sony, but gains a mild yet annoying shrill with the Marantz. Similar findings for Jacqui Naylor, Vanessa Fernandez, Julia Fordham and even Holly Cole. Do you experience anything similar with your player/system? I do not have anything else bright in my system, from KEF Reference speakers to Luxman C900u and M900u amplification. The effect is a little less pronounced when switching interconnects from AQ Cheetah XLRs to Gabriel Gold Revelations RCAs, but not gone.
I'm away today but plan on giving it a good listen tomorrow. I left town and unplugged everything becauuse of storms. I will get back tonight and maybe listen a little more. All the new stuff has made my stereo sound much better. I played it safe by making a vertical move sticking to the same brands.i have taken some of the more shrill sounding CDs from tbe 80s for a spin and they do sound a lot better.
The Bright Star Little Rock and VPI Brick, as it turns out, were not competitors. On the other hand, once upon a time Barry of Bright Star and I were competitors, but not in a bad way.
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.
