Breakin of Marantz SA8260 SACD player

Wierd to ask for opinions after you actually made a purchase. But anyways, to answer your 1st question, I would think 100 hours would be a good amount of time to let this player give you an idea of how it sounds. Just leave it spinning a disc on repeat, at least overnight, until you reach or get close to 100 hours. To answer your 2nd question, I would think that Marantz could seem to sound louder because it probably is more detailed than the Denon, but there could also be difference in sound between 2v and 2.2v output. I am not sure if it would be that audible, but it's possible. Anyhow, it's a decent player for the money. There are of course better units for $1000, sure, especially considering the used players and used stand alone DACs. Good luck.

Audphile1 - I only ask this out of genuine curiousity becasue it doesn't look like you presently own this unit. Have you owned the Marantz in the past or demoed it against other players to come to the conclusion that there is better for the money? Can you list a few of the players or player/DA combos that you found were better than the Marantz, and in what ways you've found them to be superior? Also, are you referring to used players that cost $1000 or players that were $1000 new, and are being sold in the $600 range, like the Marantz's current value. I would be curious to try some of your winners in my own system to see how they stack up. Thanks.

Good Morning All,

I bought my 8260 last month. I had many different players over the years, Quad CD-P (very nice), Audio Refinement, Sony 20ES, McIntosh MVP-841.

I bought the 8260 so I could listen to the SACD's I am collecting. So far the 8260 sounds much more refined, detailed and analog like with the 'redbook' CD's I played on the other machines. On 2 CD's I was very familiar with I heard new things my Quad did not reproduce.

It's SACD performance is superb. Listening to the old Mercury Living Presence and Living Stereo reissues is phenomenal.

Mine smoothed out with about 1 weeks continual use. I never turn mine off, so it is powered up all the time. What really suprised me was the high quality headphone amplifier. I plug in at night with my GRADO's and get wonderful sound.

Great Machine for the money. The concern of slow loading and reading does not bother me at all, in fact I really don't notice it.

Happy Listening,
hififile

Hififile,
This is good news. I posted on audioasylum about the SA8260's capability to drive headphones. Which Grados are you using? I am thinking of Sennheiser 555.

Ejresch, my friend, I did not mean to upset anybody I was just answering a question. My friend had this player for a while and I had it in my system and listened to it enough in both his and my system to fairly judge it. Like I said, it is a decent player for $1000 new, but what I was trying to say, and if I didn't make it clear here I appologize, is that on the used market $1000 will get you a better digital front end. For example a used Sony S7700(from $150 to $200) with used Bel Canto DAC2(anywhere from $700 to $800) beats the SA8260 even when the latter has an SACD of the same recording playing. Example #2 is Audio Mirror dac(new about $500) with the same Sony S7700 as a transport also bests the SA8260. I am very familiar with the sound of the system I heard it in to come to this conclusion and we did compare the Bel Canto DAC2 directly to this player in the same system running with the same interconnects connected to a different pre-amp input with SA8260 being utilized as a transport. SA8260 is pretty good for $1000 but you can definately do better if you invest the $1000 to get a good used digital playback system. I am not trying to express that the SA8260 is a POS. In no way it is, and for $1000 new, I have not heard a brand new player in this price range that will easily beat the SA8260 when it comes to overall sound, top to bottom, soundstage, imaging included, although I have not heard every single CD player in this price range, so take this with a grain of salt. Another issue with the SA8260, and this is what stopped me from buying it initially, is that it has problems reading some CDs. It is very finicky when it comes to playing less than perfect discs. I observed it on more than 1 of these players. Anyway, you like it and that's what matters the most. Everyone has different taste when it comes to the sound of their systems, so what I like may not be exactly what you like. Besides, it is entirely possible that the same component may have different sound characteristics in different systems. By the way, before you purchased the SA8260, what did you compare it to?