Marantz SA-10 Review (SACD Player & DAC)

[voodooless]

Let’s do it this way:

Take a Redbook Cd and rip it to your PC. Make sure it’s error free.

Now we can either play the file through USB or play the actual CD, which I assume can be perfectly played by the drive.

In both cases, the actual bits going over the I2S (or equivalent) lines to the DAC are exactly the same, no matter how they got there. The only difference may be the clock source, where one it probably a crystal feeding the Xmos, the other a crystal somewhere in the drive region.

 

[DWI]

Just flex your imagination. Like I said, I know someone who has one of these players. In his 60s, extremely large CD/SACD collection (a large percentage of it is Japan-imported stuff) no streaming/NAS/etc whatsoever (not interested, finds it too complex), no interest in multichannel audio, actually likes collecting physical media. Has enough money so this kind of purchase won't cause that much of a headache. It's not like you buy a CD player every week, this is the kind of thing that can serve for the rest of your lifetime.

I know I'm alone in this, but I still use cds and cd players, and not because I happen to have a lot, or I cannot built a streamer and a Nas, but because they sound better to my ears.
For whatever Pc and external dac I tried, simply cannot match them. Call it subjectivism, placebo or whatever. You put a cd in the drawer and press play, and it's magic, especially with old '80 and early '90s cds. Most of the people have never heard a proper cd player, a ripped cd in lossless format should sound the same, but it doesn't.
I believe even this Marantz should measure better if tested with a cd, but anyway sometimes I listen to some early cd players that are only 14 bit capable, and they sound spectacular. IMO an Oppo is not a cd player, never liked a blu ray machine as a standalone player or as transport.

I used a Marantz CD94 for about 10 years. Any decent CD player has wooden side-panels.

It was actually an excellent machine, it never gave me a problem in those years and there are hundreds on sale over 30 years after its launch.

A friend of mine and I graduated from the same university in 1984. After a few pay checks he bought a new Linn system and 37 years later he still has it intact. He was round a few weeks ago thinking about changing the speaker cables, but he decided to keep the old ones.

I'm not sure what proportion of people here understand that when some of us were in our 20's and 30's we bought hifi expecting to have it for at least 10 to 20 years. I still do.

Compare to the SMSL M500 (golfing panther), looked at the reviews on Amazon today, a fair proportion failed after a few months and one caught fire.

 

[xaviescacs]

Second, Amir's using higher-than-CD-quality files to ensure that the results he's reporting aren't simply format-limited, so he's showing off this player in its best possible light by using the USB connecting and 48-192kHz files, rather than using a test CD at 44.1kHz.

Fine. But users that mostly play CD will come out of this review without knowing how the unit will perform? Worse than the figure amir got, ok. But how much? That's not measuring it, that's finding out how the DAC rates in the SINAD scale here. People interested in buying CD players for sure are interested on how well the transport performs.

Finally, lets be respectful of Amir's time

I see... trying to denigrate my comments by saying they are not respectful.. this is not entirely fair...

do we really need to double his workload just so he can say "yeah SINAD when playing a CD is close to theoretical limits and jitter is below audible levels, as is true of virtually all CD players manufactured for the past 30 years"?

Ok, what I said, this details aren't important here, it's a matter of choice, no need for testing this, next device, fair enough.

 

[DWI]

Just the spiel on the Marantz product page linked above.

@voodooless
The spiel actually says that it upsamples PCM and DXD (which is PCM). It does not say it upsamples DSD.

 

[SuicideSquid]

Let’s do it this way:

Take a Redbook Cd and rip it to your PC. Make sure it’s error free.

Now we can either play the file through USB or play the actual CD, which I assume can be perfectly played by the drive.

In both cases, the actual bits going over the I2S (or equivalent) lines to the DAC are exactly the same, no matter how they got there. The only difference may be the clock source, where one it probably a crystal feeding the Xmos, the other a crystal somewhere in the drive region.

I think what Suffolkhifinut and a few other people are misunderstanding is the difference between data and metadata. If you're ripping a CD to wav and then sending it to the Marantz CD player over USB versus playing it directly off the CD, the metadata - the header information and "data about the data" that tells the DAC, interface chip, whatever, what kind of data this file contains and how it should be read - is different. That's "converted" when changing your file format or type of connection. But the data behind the header - the actual 1s and 0s that the DAC reconstructs into an audible waveform - remains the same.

 

[xaviescacs]

Because there is no indication otherwise: The marketing does not mention it, the specs don’t show it, and the inside pictures seem to point at just one DAC implementation.

Largely yes. It will show the same crappy filter response, especially bad for Redbook. The rest is then immaterial. Playing SACD does probably not use the magical upsampling, so there’s that.

Yes sure, I’d like to see some test on the CD drive part, just to make sure it performs equally. But we can also deduce a lot from the data we already have.

My point was that sometimes a device is a black box and we are stupid users and sometimes we just need a couple of measurements and because we know how it works we can more or less be sure how other parts will perform. This extrapolation looks a bit risky and dubious.

Ok, no big deal, don't want to pollute the debate further. Just wanted to say my word. I just had a moment of empathy for the people who still love and buy this devices. Some months ago I sold a 11 years old CD/SACD Pioneer in two days, and I thought nobody wanted that devices anymore...

 

[PeteL]

Let’s do it this way:

Take a Redbook Cd and rip it to your PC. Make sure it’s error free.

Now we can either play the file through USB or play the actual CD, which I assume can be perfectly played by the drive.

In both cases, the actual bits going over the I2S (or equivalent) lines to the DAC are exactly the same, no matter how they got there. The only difference may be the clock source, where one it probably a crystal feeding the Xmos, the other a crystal somewhere in the drive region.

It may not seem obvious but although there will be a few crystal as you said, in the end in a well designed system they will be converted at the DAC and it's the clock connected at the DAC chip that will matter. They should in the end have the same "Clock source". It's just how you get there. Everything is reclocked nowadays one way or the other.

 

[TBone]

Look, if it's genuinely well made internally and uses a quality transport mechanism, it's pretty good value for money for a statement CD/SACD player. The top machines have never been cheap.

... still remember the first time i saw a nude marantz cd player (thinking cd7) with banks of copper covered HDAMs, thing of beauty, well out of my budget. Luv to have 1 today ...

 

[pablolie]

While of course it's fair game evaluating this CD player through USB (since it offers such connectivity), there are much better purpose built DACs for that, IMO. I'd think as a DAC this would be better off using SPDIF, but that's just me based on the common statement that with more traditionally minded equipment the USB doesn't seem to be the preferred input. I'd like to give the Marantz the benefit of the doubt, thinking it'd show better CD-quality performance in its more native environment... Naturally, I can't prove it and I find the provided data -once again- thought provoking.

I should also note my "audio shrine" doesn't use USB. I do stream to it from my computer (and Spotify) using a 2010 edition Squeezebox Touch and then its coax SDPIF. My work computer, which I use countless hours, does use USB to (as of today) JDS Element 3. I should note in either case it's a matter of the UI on each platform. I still find the SB Touch provides me with a better music UI than if I did it over USB. I like JRiver Mediacenter for many things but certainly not for the UI - I can deal with it with a mouse on my workstation while chained to work, but not when I am sitting on the couch after work chilling away...

I also do like Amir does provide an opinion on the UI - indeed to me the old CD way (never mind vinyl) is a user experience I'd rather miss. Fidgeting with physical media, trying to read super small fonts, dealing with 8 different remotes with small button and that often are impossible to use in the dark - I have seen the light...

I used an Accuphase DP-65v for many years as a DAC - its SNR was up to 118dB (it supported up to 24bits through optical/coax SPDIF) , the DNR was 98dB, just a tad above the 96dB you'd get out of a CD (in theory). To me that may mean that CD players are designed to sound great for CD playing, which honestly is fine enough for me. I know we are ASR and we're supposed to prefer much higher numbers... but I don't think the DP-65v represented any sort of bottleneck to my musical enjoyment, I just got rid of it because it was unwieldly and huge and simply didn't fit into my smaller new environment, especially when matched with its E-306v integrated amp sibling.

 

[amirm]

I don't know why you guys turn every review into a project by asking for this and that measurement. Here is CD playback anyway:

And wideband FFT of the same:

Both added to the review.

 

[amirm]

I'd think as a DAC this would be better off using SPDIF, but that's just me based on the common statement that with more traditionally minded equipment the USB doesn't seem to be the preferred input.

I did measure S/PDIF coax input for jitter:

Its performance is identical to USB as far as jitter, and noise floor is concerned.

 

[restorer-john]

And I am telling you CD players don't do that. They stream samples in a synchronous manner.

CD players from day one have had onboard RAM. The data is read in and clocked out at a precise rate. They simply wouldn't work without buffer RAM.

Sony CDP-101 schematic section:

'Discmans' are a different beast. The earliest models used more robust tracking/focus drive servos and no additional RAM. That enabled them to track better, but also use a lot more current and battery life was short. A firm knock or bump made them easily mistrack, but consider the incredible ability of the thing in the first place. The same design was used in the earliest in-dash car CD players and even the world's first CD player (Sony CDP-101) had an anti-skip circuit (and rear panel switch) which was primarily there for demonstration purposes on the sales floor. It significantly increased the servo drive currents to enable salesmen to bang the machine and turn it upside down while playing. Trouble is, people left the switch on and the BA-xxxx servo amplifier ICs burnt up in the players over time...

The other 1st gen machines could not be turned due to the disc spinning in the vertical plane- the Sony could and it was a great sales gimmick.

Then the bright idea to use buffer RAM for shock resistance came about. As RAM was expensive, they used as little as possible and even resorted to lossy encoding/decoding at one point to increase the length of time for the 'antishock' memory. I have some 40 second antishock portable CD players from Panasonic that noticibly degrade the audio when the anitishock is used.

Top quality CD players outperform CD roms/DVD roms for realtime playback of CDs, particularly imperfect, out-of-spec, or damaged CDs. No doubt about that. People mistakenly think EAC and a CDRom drive will do a better job than a CD player. The CD player can play in real time, with mathematically perfect error correction. EAC will often need multiple tries and often gives up altogether on difficult discs.

 

[pablolie]

I did measure S/PDIF coax input for jitter:

Its performance is identical to USB as far as jitter, and noise floor is concerned.

Oh thank you, I wasn't asking for additional work. Guess I was thrown off while reading the blue title, sorry for the short attention span. ;-)

 

[SuicideSquid]

I'd think as a DAC this would be better off using SPDIF, but that's just me based on the common statement that with more traditionally minded equipment the USB doesn't seem to be the preferred input. I'd like to give the Marantz the benefit of the doubt, thinking it'd show better CD-quality performance in its more native environment... Naturally, I can't prove it and I find the provided data -once again- thought provoking.

What are you basing this on?

Also Amir just posted the CD testing results, and they are, predictably, slightly worse than the USB input.

 

[restorer-john]

I don't know why you guys turn every review into a project by asking for this and that measurement. Here is CD playback anyway

Are you using a 997Hz sine from the CD source? CBS CD-1 uses 997Hz, others use 1001Hz to keep away from correlation with the sampling frequency.

 

[restorer-john]

So there's a big disparity in THD with rated spec (0.0015%@1kHz). How much noise do we have in that THD+N?

 

[PeteL]

While of course it's fair game evaluating this CD player through USB (since it offers such connectivity), there are much better purpose built DACs for that, IMO. I'd think as a DAC this would be better off using SPDIF, but that's just me based on the common statement that with more traditionally minded equipment the USB doesn't seem to be the preferred input. I'd like to give the Marantz the benefit of the doubt, thinking it'd show better CD-quality performance in its more native environment... Naturally, I can't prove it and I find the provided data -once again- thought provoking.

I should also note my "audio shrine" doesn't use USB. I do stream to it from my computer (and Spotify) using a 2010 edition Squeezebox Touch and then its coax SDPIF. My work computer, which I use countless hours, does use USB to (as of today) JDS Element 3. I should note in either case it's a matter of the UI on each platform. I still fine the SB Touch provides ne with a better music UI than if I did it over USB. I like JRiver Mediacenter for many things but certainly not for the UI.

I used an Accuphase DP-65v for many years as a DAC - its SNR was up to 118dB (it supported up to 24bits through optical/coax SPDIF) , the DNR was 98dB, just a tad above the 96dB you'd get out of a CD (in theory). To that that may mean that CD players are designed to sound great for CD playing, which honestly is fine enough for me. I know we are SNR and we're supposed to prefer much higher numbers... but I don't think the DP-65v represented any sort of bottleneck to my musical enjoyment, I just got rid of it because it was unwieldly and huge and simply didn't fit into my smaller new environment, especially when matched with its E-306v integrated amp sibling.

Interrestingly, I am also giving them the benefit of the doubt, that it would perform just as good with physical content. I assume this, but if anything it is not entirely possible that it could be a bit worst just because accuracy in the reading is at this point unknown, the rest are pretty much known variables, I don't see problems, but that's one thing unchecked. SPDIF input is more traditionally used in these types of setup, mainly because a USB out is very complicated and expensive, it's really an interface made for computers. Not because SPDIF is superiour.

 

[pablolie]

What are you basing this on?

Also Amir just posted the CD testing results, and they are, predictably, slightly worse than the USB input.

I stand corrected

 

[LTig]

I don't know why you guys turn every review into a project by asking for this and that measurement. Here is CD playback anyway:

I'm wondering about the harmonic distortion components. Is it possible that the fundamental is not properly dithered?

 

[amirm]

Are you using a 997Hz sine from the CD source? CBS CD-1 uses 997Hz, others use 1001Hz to keep away from correlation with the sampling frequency.

It is a test CD I created a while back. Don't remember where I got the test tracks. Likely was AP tool that generated them. Definitely not a standard test disc.