I can buy an E30 for almost 60 years every year for this amount of money. As for Marantz QC, so far I've had nothing but crap products from them...
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Marantz SA-10 Review (SACD Player & DAC)
- Thread starter amirm
- Start date
Because (I correct the above post) in Japan the CD is the most popular format with 70% of the market and it took a pandemic to get them interested in streaming. It had a new state-of-the-art transport (unless you could afford Esoteric) that was best launched in a premium machine.
Change of tune: Japan music fans moving from CDs to streaming services
Japanese music enthusiasts, loyal to CDs long after the rest of the world went online, have begun reaching for the eject button and switching to streaming services as artists cancel in-store events and fans stay home because of the pandemic.
charleski
Major Contributor
Unfortunately the headphone output ports of devices like this tend to be treated like an afterthought and ignored by any review (though sometimes a reviewer will plug in some headphones to check if it works). They generally have shockingly-high output impedance, anaemic power delivery and are soundly trounced by a $100 dedicated headamp. It would be interesting to know if the situation is any different for a kilobuck statement product like this, but I'm not getting my hopes up.
SaltyCDogg
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I would have guessed this cost more like £2k. Visually almost identical to this model costing half as much
petertyson.co.uk
The main difference from a functional point of view is the lack of balanced output on the model costing 'only' £3K, the rest of the specs, including the weight are pretty much the same.
Marantz SA-12SE SACD Player
SA-12SE is engineered and extensively tuned; combined with features such as HDAM-SA3 technology, Marantz developed SACD/CD mechanism “SACDM-3”, Marantz Musical Mastering - Stream up-sampling to DSD and filtering to ensure a performance that will bring you closer than ever to your favourite music.
petertyson.co.uk
So do you mean one should spend for looks, weight, size, brand, big front fascia etc etc instead of measured performance ? If measured performance is inaudible after a certain point then there is certainly all the more "no point" in spending $7k on an equipment. Isn't it ? Or you yourself will spend "$7k" on this even after knowing about this measured performance ?
Ok, no problem that people enjoy and buy a CD player.Because (I correct the above post) in Japan the CD is the most popular format with 70% of the market and it took a pandemic to get them interested in streaming. It had a new state-of-the-art transport (unless you could afford Esoteric) that was best launched in a premium machine.
Change of tune: Japan music fans moving from CDs to streaming services
Japanese music enthusiasts, loyal to CDs long after the rest of the world went online, have begun reaching for the eject button and switching to streaming services as artists cancel in-store events and fans stay home because of the pandemic.www.reuters.com
Regarding the transport, that is very questionable at best, regarding improvement in sound quality.
The smooth operation of the mechanism is something different and something that I understand people like.
@SaltyCDogg
Not if you take off the lid.
Marantz made excellent $300 CD players, if that's what you want. The SA-10 was a premium product to launch their M3 transport and the SA-12 was the slimmed down follow-up (I referred to it above). The M3 transport has now been slimmed down and squeezed into their Model 30 streaming range, not least because the Japanese have recently discovered streaming, but with great styling it has by all accounts been a big world-wide success.
This review does seem to be the equivalent of reviewing the DAC in a Bugatti Veyron and concluding it's not a very good car and @voodooless saying he could get a new E30 every day for the next 18 years for the same money, except that I for one would prefer a Bugatti Veyron to 7,000 Topping E30's, even if only to look at it. As I have an electric car, if Bugatti did an electric version ....
Not if you take off the lid.
Marantz made excellent $300 CD players, if that's what you want. The SA-10 was a premium product to launch their M3 transport and the SA-12 was the slimmed down follow-up (I referred to it above). The M3 transport has now been slimmed down and squeezed into their Model 30 streaming range, not least because the Japanese have recently discovered streaming, but with great styling it has by all accounts been a big world-wide success.
This review does seem to be the equivalent of reviewing the DAC in a Bugatti Veyron and concluding it's not a very good car and @voodooless saying he could get a new E30 every day for the next 18 years for the same money, except that I for one would prefer a Bugatti Veyron to 7,000 Topping E30's, even if only to look at it. As I have an electric car, if Bugatti did an electric version ....
I would have guessed this cost more like £2k. Visually almost identical to this model costing half as much
The main difference from a functional point of view is the lack of balanced output on the model costing 'only' £3K, the rest of the specs, including the weight are pretty much the same.Marantz SA-12SE SACD Player
SA-12SE is engineered and extensively tuned; combined with features such as HDAM-SA3 technology, Marantz developed SACD/CD mechanism “SACDM-3”, Marantz Musical Mastering - Stream up-sampling to DSD and filtering to ensure a performance that will bring you closer than ever to your favourite music.
... and if you ask, why pay $3,000 for all that copper, well people do. It's a bit of science (EMF/RFI, that kind of thing) and a lot of anthropology, and anthropology will win every time.
People still play vinyl, even young people.If I had the Marantz SA-10 I would immediately sell it and buy something I would actually use. The days of disc spinning are limited to a few people who time forgot. Once I experienced the flexibility of CD rips and Qobuz it's very hard to go back to opening CD's, loading them with no easy method for selecting playlists. I have two Denon CD audio players and I almost never use them. Why would someone pay $7,000 for a DAC that offers medium performance? I can imagine when Marantz SA-10 owners pass away these units will end up at Goodwill for $200ish. To each his own.
Used Marantz Super Audio Cd Player Sa-14 | ShopGoodwill.com
shopgoodwill.com
Not that I disagree about the fact that the use of physical formats are limited, it is still a market.
I still buy my music on CD and rip them. In my car I still use CDs.
It is a long time since I used CDs in my home stereo system but recently I have on some albums.
Problem with streaming services is that they do not do gapless playback.
And that copper emi RFI protection should not reflect in measurements ? Or does it magically improves the sound without improving measurements ? Problem with audiophiles is that they tend to like bigger heavier golden/silver front fascia products more even if the measured performance is not good.
restorer-john
Grand Contributor
I think you missed the point!
The Bugatti Veyron audio system is made by an audiophile company that sells a $50,000 CD player. It uses a standard DAC chip (although they wipe off the name), so I presume will measure as well as a Topping E30.
Many companies design limited edition "ultimate" products as part of their research or for PR purposes. A good example is the $40,000 Rega Naiad, that resulted in the $5,000 Rega P10, probably the best value quality turntable on the planet with a revolutionary low mass design.
On the other hand, Lexus made the $350,000 LFA mainly for brand image, expecting to lose money on the project.
The SA-10 was in the middle, an "ultimate" product that was very popular and continued to sell.
fricccolodics
Member
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Still, having it on the testbench is the best opportunity to clarify matters and not doing it is a wasted opportunity
You can rip the Red Book layer from a hybrid (meaning one that has a Red Book layer) SACD--I've done it many times with my computer's optical disk drive.
I haven't tried the headphone output from this Marantz player, but many of their less expensive disc players have a very decent headphone output. I use the headphone output on my Marantz CD-5004 player all the time with HD-600 headphones.
We have you arguing the priority of measured performance and against nice styling, @voodooless, and @nikosidis why anyone would want to spin a disc rather than play a digital file. I get that, 100%. To some extent I agree.
Yet here we have a product, the first in a product line that has been highly successful, because it is very well styled, well built, there are plenty of people who can afford it, there are countries and markets where people far prefer to play CD and SACD to digital files and aren't that fussed about measurements if it sounds good.
It's a product that highlights that ASR values are not universal values and never will be. As I said, it's anthropology and ASR won't lay a scratch on it. It's well researched and there is a reading list. An example will follow.
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