Hello all,
Last week I was lucky enough to get my hands on a Marantz SA-14 CD/SACD player. It had some issues with the laser pick-up and I was tasked with fixing it. I think this is the highest end CD player I have ever got my hands on. I think it was around 3000USD back in 2002 or 2003. The issue with it was rather easy to fix as the pick-up itself was fine. It just lacked lubrication and that meant that the laser was not sliding smoothly as the disc progressed. After a careful cleaning and lubrication session, it's working fine.
I think it looks pretty nice inside. I can't say I a big fan of the champagne color and the round screen but I guess it's OK. The thing is rather heavy and most of the weight is coming from the enclosure and the mains transformer. The CD transport is CDM15M and it uses 2x CS4397 DAC chips. As far as I know, this DAC IC was really high performance back then.
Needless to say, I was expecting some good results when it came to measurements and here we go...
THD+N at 1kHz 0 dB:
This is very good. This is the best I measured so far and it's pretty close to the -96dB limit of what an audio CD can deliver. THD is not very low for today's standards at -98.3dB but for 2002 it's very good and coupled with pretty low noise, we have a THD+N of -95dB (the CS4397 datasheet is saying -100dB THD+N, so pretty close to spec). The third harmonic limits the THD measurement. This measurement is from the left channel. The right one is a bit worse at -94.5dB (still very good). I also want to mention that I'm using the RCA outputs for now. I want to perform some measurements on the XLR outputs as well but this will be at a later stage.
THD+N at 1kHz and -6dB:
Still very good.
Multitone:
This is very good as well. There is a slight hump at low frequencies but the amplitude is rather low, below -100dB. I'm, wondering if this is not caused by the external transformer I'm using to power it. It's a device that comes from Japan and it needs 100Vac and I use a transformer from 230Vac for this purpose.
Jitter looks good as well:
Filter response:
Out of band attenuation is very good at around -100dB. I noticed that the unit has a filter switch on the back but I did not play with it as it has a plastic thing that locks it into the standard position. I did not look into this for now.
Now some IMD measurements:
This looks very good. IMD is low and well controlled.
The "inter-sample overs":
And the table with the other two units I measured so far:
Here is the THD vs frequency:
There is a slight bump at low frequencies, but other than that, it looks very good.
And here is the detailed frequency response:
Conclusion:
The results are very good in my opinion and this is the best measuring unit I had the pleasure to test. I admit I did not test many so far
. I enjoyed listening to the unit and the sound is detailed, crisp and clear, as shown by the measurements. Weather this justifies the cost, that is another topic and I don't know what to say. @NTTY measured the Denon DCD-900NE and it performed very well and the cost is considerably lower than this Marantz. It does look "high-end" and it measures in the same way but I'm not a big fan of the round screen. Looking online, units from Japan sell around 1500USD to which you have to add shipping and tax, and that is a lot if you compare it to the Denon DCD-900NE that sells for new at around 500USD.
Agian, many thanks to @NTTY for providing the test CD and the help and suppot. Highly appreciated!
Last week I was lucky enough to get my hands on a Marantz SA-14 CD/SACD player. It had some issues with the laser pick-up and I was tasked with fixing it. I think this is the highest end CD player I have ever got my hands on. I think it was around 3000USD back in 2002 or 2003. The issue with it was rather easy to fix as the pick-up itself was fine. It just lacked lubrication and that meant that the laser was not sliding smoothly as the disc progressed. After a careful cleaning and lubrication session, it's working fine.
I think it looks pretty nice inside. I can't say I a big fan of the champagne color and the round screen but I guess it's OK. The thing is rather heavy and most of the weight is coming from the enclosure and the mains transformer. The CD transport is CDM15M and it uses 2x CS4397 DAC chips. As far as I know, this DAC IC was really high performance back then.
Needless to say, I was expecting some good results when it came to measurements and here we go...
THD+N at 1kHz 0 dB:
This is very good. This is the best I measured so far and it's pretty close to the -96dB limit of what an audio CD can deliver. THD is not very low for today's standards at -98.3dB but for 2002 it's very good and coupled with pretty low noise, we have a THD+N of -95dB (the CS4397 datasheet is saying -100dB THD+N, so pretty close to spec). The third harmonic limits the THD measurement. This measurement is from the left channel. The right one is a bit worse at -94.5dB (still very good). I also want to mention that I'm using the RCA outputs for now. I want to perform some measurements on the XLR outputs as well but this will be at a later stage.
THD+N at 1kHz and -6dB:
Still very good.
Multitone:
This is very good as well. There is a slight hump at low frequencies but the amplitude is rather low, below -100dB. I'm, wondering if this is not caused by the external transformer I'm using to power it. It's a device that comes from Japan and it needs 100Vac and I use a transformer from 230Vac for this purpose.
Jitter looks good as well:
Filter response:
Out of band attenuation is very good at around -100dB. I noticed that the unit has a filter switch on the back but I did not play with it as it has a plastic thing that locks it into the standard position. I did not look into this for now.
Now some IMD measurements:
This looks very good. IMD is low and well controlled.
The "inter-sample overs":
And the table with the other two units I measured so far:
CD player | 5512.5 Hz sine, Peak = +0.69dBFS | 7350 Hz sine, Peak = +1.25dBFS | 11025 Hz sine, Peak = +3.0dBFS |
| Marantz CD52mk2 - SE | -34dB | -27.6dB | -16.2dB |
| Marantz CD67mk2 | -37.6dB | -29.1dB | -19.3dB |
| Marantz SA-14 | -47dB | -32.6dB | -21.4dB |
Here is the THD vs frequency:
There is a slight bump at low frequencies, but other than that, it looks very good.
And here is the detailed frequency response:
Conclusion:
The results are very good in my opinion and this is the best measuring unit I had the pleasure to test. I admit I did not test many so far
. I enjoyed listening to the unit and the sound is detailed, crisp and clear, as shown by the measurements. Weather this justifies the cost, that is another topic and I don't know what to say. @NTTY measured the Denon DCD-900NE and it performed very well and the cost is considerably lower than this Marantz. It does look "high-end" and it measures in the same way but I'm not a big fan of the round screen. Looking online, units from Japan sell around 1500USD to which you have to add shipping and tax, and that is a lot if you compare it to the Denon DCD-900NE that sells for new at around 500USD.Agian, many thanks to @NTTY for providing the test CD and the help and suppot. Highly appreciated!
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