Marantz SA-10 Review (SACD Player & DAC)

[PeteL]

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:
View attachment 192513

'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.

Yes synchronous was not the right exact term in this context. It's clear trough the rest of the conversation that I was aware of the buffering,

 

[amirm]

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

It is possible. Per above, it has been a while since I created it.

 

[Miska]

$7500 for a stereo-only SACD player is crazy. One of the main remaining uses for SACD is the back catalog has thousands of multi-channel albums which are not available any other way.

You can rip SACDs with bluray players that cost $50-$100 on eBay and then have a more convenient playback interface and use any DAC you want as well.

That said, old SACDs sometimes cost hundreds of dollars and people do collect them so I can see the rationale for a device at this price, it'd just make more sense to me if it had 5.1 outputs. Can't be that difficult to add support for that at this price.

Unfortunately pick-up head on my 5.1 channel Sony SACD player died... It had the nice custom Burr-Brown DAC chips with DSD-only. It was upsampling also CD to DSD for playback.

Now I have just a Pioneer stereo CD/SACD player left. But it won't do multichannel. IIRC, based on Wolfson DAC chip.

 

[Miska]

If I wanted to test an SACD player, could I just burn my own test disc with test tones? Or is there something special about those two discs?

Edit: Nvm, found my answer. SACD disks are watermarked.

Some SACD players based on Mediatek chipset can play DSD-Discs. These are SACD file layout DVD data discs.

But note that there are bunch of SACD/Bluray players based on those chips that play DSD through poor quality conversion to 88.2k PCM. This is optional feature of the Mediatek firmware.

 

[TBone]

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.

exactly, my 24yr old linn is still used periodically to rip used & scratched, otherwise damaged cds which EAC couldn't.

 

[DWI]

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 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.

I had a Marantz CD94 from about 1988 to 1999 and then a Primare D30.2 from 1999 to 2009. The Primare came with a remote control that was a work of art - steel and milled aluminium.

For me the downfall of the CD was the booklets. Couldn't read them easily. Much prefer to read on my iPad via Qobuz. Still do. Would now be less of a problem as I have Nikon varifocals that cost about the same as a Marantz SA-10.

The remote control also controlled the amplifier.

The Primare amplifier failed after 8 years. They repaired it free of charge including international shipping. I didn't even have to ask. Their reason - they said it should not have broken. When my Zorloo DAC broke after 3 months it went in the bin.

 

[Angsty]

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.

Ostensibly, that is why Marantz believes it can and should charge $7500 for a SACD player; the expectation of life-long service. The SMSL makes no such pretense; they are hoping you regularly upgrade to their latest and greatest. Nonetheless, it should never fail prematurely or catch on fire!

As for "some of us", I resemble that remark. I still buy Bryston's hardware for their temerity to have a 20 year warranty; I just exercised that option on a piece of gear that was 18 years old. None of the Sony mass market gear I purchased in my 20's or 30's lasted that long; my NADs did.

 

[Angsty]

Bear in mind the Sony players don't have analog outputs.

Indeed, you are right. Got too excited about a mass market device that played SACDs that I failed to notice the obvious!

 

[kencreten]

I don't know. If a person has $7500 burning a hole in their pocket, and is just dying to have a mediocre CD player, this might be the one.

 

[pablolie]

I don't know. If a person has $7500 burning a hole in their pocket, and is just dying to have a mediocre CD player, this might be the one.

*IF* you prefer to play CDs (I don't now, but did up until 15 years ago or so), you also appreciate the tactile experience of the CD player and its loading mechanism, don't discount that. I agree that by SINAD numbers etc and if you primarily use the USB port, come on, there certainly are better choices out there, but for those who prefer the CD ritual and only use computer-centric stuff as a rare second choice... and value the tactile feel, this may not be that bad. I voted "not terrible", but the main reason why I'd never buy it is because I never play CDs - I just rip them to FLAC. I have no use for a CD player in my audio rig.

 

[Blumlein 88]

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.

Funny, for a few years asynchronous USB was hailed by subjective audiophiles as a big improvement over SPDIF inputs to high end DACS. Then those start up companies we all know started finding dubious faults with USB and making devices to fix such faults. And the meme that USB was dirty and second rate to the ole timey correct SPDIF input was born and along with it a lucrative market with no end in sight. Audiophoolery knows no bounds. Neither do its customers.

 

[Blumlein 88]

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:
View attachment 192513

'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.

Never found a disc that EAC failed to decode except twice, and neither would play in any CD player. Decoded dozens of discs with EAC that also would not play in any CD player. The best CD player I had for damaged discs was a Pioneer Elite CLD-97 Laserdisc/CD player. It would play the Pierre Verany test disc all the way through and often played discs no other player would. Even with it many discs weren't playable, but were decoded by EAC.

 

[Blumlein 88]

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

Looks like the main culprit is the high 3rd and other odd order harmonics drawing this down to 91 db instead of more like 96 db. Has the noise hump caused by conversion to DSD from the looks of the noise floor too. There also appear to be imaging artifacts ultrasonically near -91 db.

 

[pablolie]

Never found a disc that EAC failed to decode except twice, and neither would play in any CD player. Decoded dozens of discs with EAC that also would not play in any CD player. The best CD player I had for damaged discs was a Pioneer Elite CLD-97 Laserdisc/CD player. It would play the Pierre Verany test disc all the way through and often played discs no other player would. Even with it many discs weren't playable, but were decoded by EAC.

I had discs that took dbPoweramp several runs and thus a long time to decode with 100% confidence. It was a small number in a 2200+ CD library though.

 

[sam_adams]

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.

For those interested in test discs, the Boston Audio Society has a listing of test discs available from dbsystems. Many of the listings are out-of-print but there may be limited quantities available. Send them an email if you so desire.

This is the test disc I have:

from 1988.

 

[jam]

Further the SA-10 takes the data from all sources, whether CD, SACD or USB and upsamples them to 256 DSD prior to converting them. There certainly is no direct SPDIF to DSD capability. All sources are converted. It is the MMM or Marantz Musical Mastering.
. . .
And yes that includes replay from Discs.

This is the additional info you get when you click on the LEARN MORE link from the MMM technology description:

IMHO, this player exemplifies much of what is wrong with the audio industry these days. Marantz develops a "novel" technology solution (MMM) to solve god knows what problem. In the end, the proof is in the pudding as the saying goes. We can see from Amir's measurement that the results, while respectable, are no where near SOTA, not even in the excellent tier of competing products, most of them of considerable lower cost. On top of that Marantz continues to cover it with a thick layer of HDAM sauce, I've had more than enough of that one to feel indigestion from my own Marantz gear over the last 9 years. Marantz should at the very least test and measure what they design to see if their pet theory of audio nirvana even brings any benefits in the real world.

 

[pablolie]

For those interested in test discs, the Boston Audio Society has a listing of test discs available from dbsystems. Many of the listings are out-of-print but there may be limited quantities available. Send them an email if you so desire.

...

There is always this one...

HDtracks | You can hear the difference. Listen on the go in master studio quality.

HDtracks is a high-resolution music platform for music lovers to download their favorite tracks in master studio quality. Join us today for the ultimate listening experience!

www.hdtracks.com

There was also this one... (Sheffield had one more, can't find it)...

Various - The Sheffield / Coustic Set-up And Test Disc

View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 1994 CD release of "The Sheffield / Coustic Set-up And Test Disc" on Discogs.

www.discogs.com

I find it useful for basic setup, the songs are pretty sterile and I don't think I have ever listened to them in their entirety, as is often the case with these audiophile references for me (maybe my fault)...

 

[sam_adams]

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.

Agree with @restorer-john on this. Testing should be done to AES17-1998-(r2004) or later when testing digital devices.

 

[amirm]

There is always this one...

I don't know about these but I have tested tones on other sampler discs like these and they have major issues. On test tracks created specifically for measurements of hardware are reliable.

 

[pablolie]

I don't know about these but I have tested tones on other sampler discs like these and they have major issues. On test tracks created specifically for measurements of hardware are reliable.

It was just in reply to someone else - in no way was I implying you should run those on top of all you do, which is all encompassing. It was just in case anyone (else, not you) needed pointers to test tracks.