PS Audio DAC iii and Marantz SA 8100 CD Player

Try it and hear for yourself.

Sa8001 is excellent . Going to be a different sound. Not necessarily better.

Oh ya, sacd on that player is superb near sota in sound quality at an affordable price. I had most marantz players over the years starting with the 8260 then sa8001, sa15, sa11,sa8003, and now just got sa8004 which is an incredible piece. I can now play my sacds and stream my squeezebox through the internal marantz Dac to get that awesome marantz analog sound. I love marantz players. Imho, the best value going today

Dpac996: Hi again: I bought the PS Audio from you! Do you know if the SA 8001 is cable of streaming a Squeezebox? How does the hookup work? Squeeze to Marantz via dig/optical input?

Ya I know! You can't stream sbox to 8001. Need 8004 or sa15 for that. Sbox into ps audio via optical was best connection for me. Sacd on 8001 is very good. Redbook is about equal to ps audio; they are different perspectives actually. Which one works with your system only you know!

Here's my verdict: not a lot of difference. I am playing Diana Krall on CD two ways: from Marantz going into the PS Audio Dig Link iii DAC via optical and going into a Rega R integrated amp via RCA interconnects. I hear no difference. None. Do I have the best trained ears? No, but I can go pretty quickly between the two Rega line-ins and I hear nada difference. By the way, the PS Audio on test one was upsampling to 96. When I set it to 192, still no real difference. If there is one small noticeable difference, the PS Audio may sound a tad airier. So, here's my next test: go from Apple lossless via Wadia into PS Audio, comparing it to the Marantz directly into Rega via RCA.