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Marantz SA-10 Review (SACD Player & DAC)

Rate this product:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 70 23.3%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 139 46.2%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 78 25.9%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 14 4.7%

  • Total voters
    301

julian_hughes

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I did say for all practical reasons, which are, but you are part of a very small group that your purchases doesn't even register in the sales figure, hence the use of the word "practical".
People are making and maintaining real, practical, profitable business by selling in these formats. Your personal definition of the word practical seems rather impractical. No practical Scotsman.......
 

aj625

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I'd be more likely (which is not much) to buy something this expensive if it was hand made, or there was some kind of cool technology, but for this much money, it better be a speaker (pair). Seriously, this is too much for anything else.

My question is, how does measured performance add value after audibility is surpassed? This is the assumption behind your statement.
Audibility is surpassed ? I know only 20hz -20khz human limit. Please post link for other limits.
 

voodooless

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Why is it so many CD player reviews turn into generic discussions on CD tech history and its merits?
Funny how you answered your own question:
It's quite telling that 40 years later nobody has come up with a more widely adopted standard for high end audio that is more widely agreed upon as being at the very limit of human hearing...
:cool:
 

DWI

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I did say for all practical reasons, which are, but you are part of a very small group that your purchases doesn't even register in the sales figure, hence the use of the word "practical".
I've bought perhaps 100 titles from Hyperion Records over the years, a record label that represents many of the top classical artists based in the UK, as well as other international artists. They don't offer any files to the streaming services, only CD and download. The sell a lot of CDs.

It is an important label in the classical music world and there are many similar, with no streaming. Whether they impact on global sales is totally irrelevant.

However, this CD/SACD player was made for a large market (Japan) where the majority of music sales were (and largely remain) CD/SACD, so the fact that other markets like the USA have largely given up on discs is irrelevant.
 

voodooless

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DWI

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You can see from the figures that CD prices have been discounted by an average of about 20%. It's still next to nothing. Japanese CD sales are 10 times those in the USA (per capita). Even in the UK they are twice those of the USA.
 

charleski

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What Cyrus claims is just nonsense.
Well the principal nonsense is that audio CD players do not "skip back on the spiral to re-read it" unless they're broken. If a CD player skips it's usually because the grease on the worm screw advancing the laser head has dried out and thus the head is failing to move correctly, loses track lock and then re-establishes lock on a part of the track that's already been played. Playing an audio CD doesn't involve the sort of seeks and retries used for data discs, it's a simple linear process. If an audio CD player can't "correctly read the first time" then it needs to be fixed or you are trying to play a severely damaged disc.

But an optical player uses multiple servos to control the laser head, and the focus and tracking servos will be constantly active to maintain a +/-0.5um focus lock on the track pits, even for discs that play perfectly well. It is vaguely possible that this might introduce transitory spikes on the motor control ground plane that break through to the analog stage, but as I said, this would be evidence of extremely poor design. I did find a post on DIYAudio from some genius who'd decided to 'upgrade' his CD player by wrecking it and ended up with servo noise breaking through, but this guy clearly doesn't have a clue what he's doing. Unfortunately here in hifi-land being clueless isn't a barrier for some manufacturers. I suppose the principal protection against this is that optical heads are sufficiently complex devices that they haven't become subject to the sort of tinkering by inept cottage-industry mavens who think they know better.
 

ToPa

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This is a review and detailed measurements of the Marantz SACD player and USB balanced DAC. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $7,499.
View attachment 192234
The industrial design is good although usability is poor with super tiny fonts for various settings (e.g. filter number top left). Disc tray opens and closed buttery smooth -- a requirement for highend transports. The remote control is shiny silver which is odd and is plastic on the back. Back panel shows the connectivity:

View attachment 192236

Nice to see support for USB audio as so many of these products live in the past without. The SA-10 is incredibly heavy at 40 pounds. It weighs more than their Audio Video Receivers with many channels of amplification! I guess it gives comfort to owners that they have bought something of quality.

Marantz SA-10 DAC Measurements
Inclusion of USB eases my testing as I can drive the unit with all my standard tests. Let's start with our dashboard using RCA out:
View attachment 192237

And now balanced XLR:
View attachment 192238

I must say I was relieved that it did not measure poorly. SINAD of 105 dB lands it in the competent category:
View attachment 192239

But of course way, way below what we can get out of even budget desktop DACs. Distortion is at -112 dB which makes it inaudible but again, is not competitive. Note that I played with various optimizations such as Digital Off but none made any difference.

SNR is not great for a device in this price category:
View attachment 192240

That's about 17 bits of dynamic range. State of the art DACs reach up to 22 bits.

Multitone does well due to reduced levels it drives the DAC at:
View attachment 192241

Linearity is good enough but again, we expect more:
View attachment 192242

Jitter performance was disappointing:
View attachment 192243

The jitter components can easily be identified by frequency and sources found and eliminated. See how it was independent of which input is used so it means that the jitter is internally generated.

IMD test shows the impact of higher than desired noise level:

View attachment 192244

Company really believes in these super slow filters that allow a bunch of ultrasonic images to be there:
View attachment 192245

Even the faster filter 2 takes its time to do its thing. This directly impacts our wideband THD+N measurements as we take into account everything up to 90 kHz:
View attachment 192249

A $99 board that came out around the same time it did (dashed blue) outperforms it handily.

Marantz SA-10 SACD Playback Measurements
I do not have any SACD test discs. Only a few were created and are not easy to find. So I just played some music and grabbed the spectrum:
View attachment 192252

Notice the classic DSD stream ultrasonic noise. Some attempt is made to filter part of it above the peak of 100 kHz but by then the damage is done. There is as much noise energy at 100 kHz than we have at 3 kHz in music!

BTW, the first SACD disc I tried to play, Dvorak Symphony No 7 in D minor by Ivan Fischer would not play. The unit just said "no disc." Not sure what is up with that.

EDIT:
Marantz SA-10 CD Playback
Here is playback of 16 bit CD:
View attachment 192514

91 dB is the limit for dithered 16 bit content so player can't do better than that. That said, there is a spray of harmonic distortion that is unfortunate.

To see how the encoding works, here is a wideband view:
View attachment 192515

Looks like noise shaping combined with some of filter centered around 30 to 40 kHz.

Conclusions
The Marantz SA-10 measured performance is good enough to not embarrass the brand. But it is not remotely optimized enough to compete with DACs at 5 to 10% of its cost. Of course those DACs don't play physical discs so if you have a good sized library of SACDs, the SA-10 remains an option. But at such high cost? Very hard to justify based on my measurements.

Needless to say, I personally have no use for this device. My DSD content is downloaded and I just don't play my SACD discs. We would need to test lower cost SACD players to see where SA-10 lands.

I let you decide if this is a product worth recommendation.

Edit: video review posted:

-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
 

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Abe_W

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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.

My TOTL players from Sony cost nearly $3k, 32 years ago and the best Marantz in my collection was $6k in 1991. Those machines all still function and test perfectly due to their absolute battleship build quality. So 40 pounds (18kg) may mean some thick steel plates to add weight and it may mean uncompromising componentry and build, attention to detail and hopefully (in this case for the reviewed Marantz) longevity.
I have the Technics SL-G700 SACD player which retails for 3000 i.e less than half the price of this Marantz. It is an exceptionally well built and pristine sounding player with full streaming features included.

Nevertheless, reading some of the comments here beating on these type of products imply that this crowd doesn't quite understand the value behind such products (Japanese heritage line stuff). Ripping, SMSL, Popping...lol. it's like putting a gas station coffee fed hillbilly in a bourgeois Parisian coffee shop. It could take him a while.
 
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threni

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I have the Technics SL-G700 SACD player which retails for 3000 i.e less than half the price of this Marantz. It is an exceptionally well built and pristine sounding player with full streaming features included.

Nevertheless, reading some of the comments here beating on these type of products imply that this crowd doesn't quite understand the value behind such products (Japanese heritage line stuff). Ripping, SMSL, Popping...lol. it's like putting a gas station coffee fed hillbilly in a bourgeois Parisian coffee shop. It could take him a while.
The analogy only really works if the shop is selling the same coffee as the gas station. I think the poseur watch analogy works better here.
 

DWI

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I have the Technics SL-G700 SACD player which retails for 3000 i.e less than half the price of this Marantz. It is an exceptionally well built and pristine sounding player with full streaming features included.

Nevertheless, reading some of the comments here beating on these type of products imply that this crowd doesn't quite understand the value behind such products (Japanese heritage line stuff). Ripping, SMSL, Popping...lol. it's like putting a gas station coffee fed hillbilly in a bourgeois Parisian coffee shop. It could take him a while.
And of course the SA-10 came out in 2017. When your Technics came out a few years later Marantz had or were about to issue their $3,000 SA-12 version.

Many people still love the whole CD thing and for good reason. They love the sound from these SA-10 and SA-12 machines and they are built to last a lifetime.

Amir, Archimago (who did a very detailed 3-part review) and others may agree that the Topping D90SE is the best measuring DAC ever, some people love them, but on Amazon people complain they break and sound harsh.

Marantz went full Heritage with the 30 series and by all accounts it's been a great success.
 

dadregga

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SACDs are absolutely irrelevant in the same way that vinyl is, and CDs are.

But technical relevance doesn't necessarily have anything to do with actual cultural relevance, or what people want. See also:

- American muscle cars.
- Film-based cameras
- Video game consoles
- Music itself
- etc
 

symphara

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SACDs are absolutely irrelevant in the same way that vinyl is, and CDs are.

But technical relevance doesn't necessarily have anything to do with actual cultural relevance, or what people want. See also:

- American muscle cars.
- Film-based cameras
- Video game consoles
- Music itself
- etc
Not being a mass market product doesn't make something irelevant. Plenty of niche products are commercially successful and some set the trend in the larger market.
 

MarcT

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Lol, both my Oppo BDP-83 and UDP-203 will play SACD stereo and mutli-channel discs , as well as DVD-Audio discs. And my Denon AVR decodes them all via HDMI and sounds great to me.
 

sonci99

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Lol, both my Oppo BDP-83 and UDP-203 will play SACD stereo and mutli-channel discs , as well as DVD-Audio discs. And my Denon AVR decodes them all via HDMI and sounds great to me.
and none play as good as a standalone sacd or cd player. I still dont get what the use of sacd with a receiver? sacd is an audiophile format, while receivers are meh at best, as measurements confirm..
I have a Sony UHP H1, it plays sacd and dvda on the analog out, and its terrible, my 30 years cd players run circles around it.
To me cd players sound much better than old or modern dacs, I don't know why, nor do I care, people just forgot how a good cd sound.
 

dadregga

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Lol, both my Oppo BDP-83 and UDP-203 will play SACD stereo and mutli-channel discs , as well as DVD-Audio discs. And my Denon AVR decodes them all via HDMI and sounds great to me.

Yep - and as pointed out you can rip all your SACD stereo and multichannel layers to files with a $35 Sony bluray player and play them back via any DAC you want and have a superior playback pathway to any transport out there - which is exactly what I do. There is no measurable difference, I don't hear a difference, and no one can show there is an audible-but-not-measurable difference.

Bits from the disc hit the DAC as bits - variations come down to the DAC implementation or the preamp stage for analog outs (or PCM conversion, which a lot of players do), and that's it. The spinny part isn't magic and has zero impact on reproduction, these aren't vinyl records.

Spinner transports are a cosmetic indulgence - which is fine - but $7500 is a whole lot of money for a cosmetic indulgence that doesn't even measure well or do MCH output.
 
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Herbert

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But an optical player uses multiple servos to control the laser head, and the focus and tracking servos will be constantly active to maintain a +/-0.5um focus lock on the track pits, even for discs that play perfectly well. It is vaguely possible that this might introduce transitory spikes on the motor control ground plane that break through to the analog stage, but as I said, this would be evidence of extremely poor design. I did find a post on DIYAudio from some genius who'd decided to 'upgrade' his CD player by wrecking it and ended up with servo noise breaking through, but this guy clearly doesn't have a clue what he's doing. Unfortunately here in hifi-land being clueless isn't a barrier for some manufacturers. I suppose the principal protection against this is that optical heads are sufficiently complex devices that they haven't become subject to the sort of tinkering by inept cottage-industry mavens who think they know better.
Completely irrevelant as only 3 mechanisms are available worldwide for about a decade now: Toshiba HOP-1200, (CD/DVD/SACD) Sanyo SF-HD850 (CD/DVD) and Sony KHM-313 (CD only). Sony probably left the OEM market, Philips did it already in 2007(!). The SF HD-850
is so cheap that customers use it also for CD only. No matter if you buy Yamaha, Denon or Marantz, it is the Toshiba HOP-1200.
BTW, all 3 drives have no BSL motors. Just the same small Mabuchi motor that sells for 1$.

They love the sound from these SA-10 and SA-12 machines and they are built to last a lifetime.

See above. Same drive, HOP-1200. They gave the complete unit including the tray a fancy name to make the customers believe
they built it from scratch but they did not. Ever wondered why you could see nice photographs of the mechanics two or three
decades ago but not today? The KHM-313 sells for $12 and spins in some Accuphase...
 
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kencreten

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*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.
In this case, $7500 for ... the pleasure of "tactile use?" Not for me.
 

pinpoint_oxford

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Honestly, this isn't a bad price for what it is. An SACD player that allows you to use its DAC via USB is very rare. Heck, SACD players are rare these days on their own (esp outside of Japan). My guess is this is a competitive product for someone who is in the market for an SACD player.
 

pablolie

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Not being a mass market product doesn't make something irrelevant. Plenty of niche products are commercially successful and some set the trend in the larger market.

It's a complex discussion indeed. As I mentioned before, while I no longer have the need for the tactile experience and visual enjoyment for any CD player, I respect the preference of those that do ((unless they swear by something that measures like it was designed to create distortion, which isn't the case here).

I *am* an avid fan of mechanical watches. I know some don't "get it", and I don't get into arguments about them not being as accurate etc... what matters to me is to have craftsmanship on my wrist - no electronics need apply. I also drive a pretty impractical car rather than a Prius. Etc.
 
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