Marantz SA-10 arriving Monday!

Thank you Elizabeth. I'm a rocker and never really took the time and patience to enjoy classical. 

I'm trying to get more into classical music with the SA-10 in the house. I scored yesterday at a thrift store going out of business. 25 cent CDs!!!! I bought 20 classical titles. Strauss, Horowitz, with  Telarc and Grammaphone for the labels. I love the sounds of the orchestra for a change. I don't see how a record could sound any better with some of these. The better the recording. The better your system will sound. Didn't mean to de rail the thread here.

elizabeth, it is a well know issue for SA-10 when playing from USB thumb drive.  please see the 2nd paragraph from the link below:

http://help.nativedsd.com/handling-and-playing-dsd-files/file-management/creating-a-gapless-playback...

I just hope Marantz will fix this.

@elizabeth do you have isolation transformer or other power conditioning device in your system?  I use Torus AVR30 wall mount (I live in 240V country).  It was only after I have the SA-10 I know the true capability of my system.

My SA-10 is in its second week.  I don't think the break in has completed but it's sounding better and better.  In my experience, playing discs directly using SA-10 transport gives the best results followed by a high-performance USB thumb drive.  My hard disk player (Sony HAP-Z1ES) is not up to the standard of SA-10.  While the Sony supports gapless playback in all formats, the sound is inferior when using SA-10 USB Audio input.  I think to get the best from USB Type B input, need a much better player/streamer costing close to SA-10.

I wish SA-10 supports gapless playback when playing from USB drive.  Right now it mutes with relay clicks at the beginning of each track which is annoying.  I hope Marantz will fix this through firmware upgrade.

elizabeth
Precisely!  Happy Listening!

elizabeth
Thank You for your continued thoughts/impressions on the SA-10 as well.I am still trying to find an audition in my immediate area, the Southeast U.S.

Happy Listening!

bluerangerMuch Thanks! for providing your thoughts/impressions on the SA-10.The hope lies in Marantz learning from Sony/Philips on "not" what to do on their Reference spinners. Keep all marketing tactics in place for entry, mid and highest end players.
Additionally, reach out and touch this company w/ an email or phone call expressing your pleasure with their Digital products. Inquire about their intentions to stock essential/critical parts as well.

Happy Listening!

I have the SA14 and I love it. It rivals or betters my vinyl rig (Amadeus with Dynavector 20, Luxman E1 phono) depending upon the recording but especially with SACDs
The rest of my rig is DeHavilland Ultraverve, Bryston 4BSST, Vandy 3A Sigs.

I think the headphone jack on the SA-10 us dandy. Detailed and what Rain man might say, "sparkly". I still like the filter one setting and factory default on the other settings. 
 I just out the new Zaolla silverline balanced interconnects on the 14b3. Music has a little more zip and excitement but leans a little to the edgy side. I know silver can be brutally revealing bring out a components weakness. Music has a little more impact and that is expected since silver is a faster conducter. The KGACs were fast and some songs that start out woukd actually jolt me a little. I finally gave up on them because they were to revealing to the older equipment I had. I wish I had kept them but hey trade in for new toys is the game. I did burn them in for a week in my cable cooker and that helped. I hope the Zaollas break in and mello some.
 I stay on the filter 1 setting. I still use the factory default settings on the other sound shaping options. This player is the bomb. It decodes  a fantastic digital signal into a lush landscape of sonic pleasures. With that said, however I'm not retiring my TT.

The "yankee"?  He must be from the Bronx.😝

Good point well taken. I dry brush every record before I drop the needle. All records vacuum cleaner, stored in plastic sleeves with album jackets. I clean all CDs too but not before playing. My Marantz has been skipping about every 30 hozrs of playing. The CD only  loses a sec or two. The 8005 I had for 15 months never skipped. Will this get worse????? Like my Shanling not being able to read discs less and less. I remember In 05 it started having trouble reading SACDs I might have to give it 3-6 reloads but it would go. It would never play Tommy. When I had to have it serviced up North around 05. The Yankee said if it doesn't play or has trouble playing a disc now and then don't worry. It was only SACDs at that time. If I had made him fix it while they still had replacement parts it would be working today!!!! Thanks for your professional opinion whoever you were. I hope you read thus post. Hey doctor it hurts when I move my arm a special kind of way. WELL DONT MOVE IT THAT KIND OF SPECIAL WAY!!! NEXT. 

Worse case scenario lets say 10 
 years from now my transport dies. I hope streaming units will have become user friendly and the sound quality will far surpass what we have now on Redbook CD. By that time I will be able to copy all my CDs with a super sophisticated quantum DAC that can decompress the horrid recordings of this decade. And maybe give it something a little extra in the resolution department. Im a little uncomfortable using ny transport all the time like Elizabeth warns, just how long does a top quality transport last anyway????? My Shanling T200 from 03 started giving me trouble reading discs about 8 years ago and got to the point 2 years ago where 90 percent would not decode. Shanling stopped supporting this unit years ago. I just hope Marantz is a more customer friendly company. I still wish it would work because after the Parts Connexion mod it was very musical. In some ways more than the Marantz. Fast bass attack. The midrange was more forward and that's not a bad thing for rock music. It now sits over on a shelf on top of my records.. I don't want to take it to the dump. Amazingly it will still play a Mamas and Papas remasted by Steve Hoffman. That is the only CD that it has consistently been playable without having to load it a dozen times. I will drag it out one day again. I will see. I'm happy with tbe SA-10. Its a keeper and have it well insured and an updated security system with cameras. They will have to take it out of my cold dead hands. Lol

It was a real bummer when Sony decided to stop supporting the big SACD players that they produced in the late 90's. I bought one of them. At the time, I thought it was great that "Sony" got into the fray with high end because certainly, they will support the product for years and not go belly up. Well, we all know that transports for those two units are gone as is hope for their future. What to do? Will Marantz fair better? Joe

Elizabeth, I mistyped something in my previous message. I meant to say "is that the unit" rather than "if that the unit". I am just trying to clarify the meaning of those Marantz settings.

Clearthink, can you enlighten us with an explanation for bit-perfect acoustic waves?

After that, we should get the discussion back on track to Marantz SA-10. This thread should be for people who own the player, had some experience with it, or may be interested in knowing more about the experience of those first two types of people.

Elizabeth, take a look at page 8, bottom of the middle section. They use the word "phase" for polarity. However, all you need to know if that the unit comes wired with pin 2 hot (+) and pin 3 cold (-), as I posted in my previous message. I do not know the XLR polarity setting for Bryston BP-26; the Luxman C900u in my system allows to set the polarity for each input and for the output.
@clearthink: I have a PhD in engineering; the Redbook standard does not provide a guarantee for reconstructing perfectly the original acoustic signal

Decoding perfectly is one thing. Carrying an undistorted signal through the analog chain is another. Digital noise is rather nasty and filters don't seem to get alk of it out. My Marantz manual suggests turning off the display, digital outs and the headphone amp!

@clearthink    "3" has got to be your favorite number!🧐😛😁  Yes, 3 emojis in your honor.

astru"I believe the point of the settings is that the PCM format is not lossless, and Marantz provides the option to play with different settings because there is no agreed way to reconstruct the original acoustic signal."

You do not know what you are talking about PCM audio is a clearly established, defined and standardized format there is absolute, complete, and universal agreement about how to recover an analog signal from a PCM data stream and this recovery can be done as has been demonstrated completely error free so it is absolutely bit-perfect "lossless" and there is no debate, uncertainty, or alternative to this scientifically developed protocol so you might want to check your research, references, and facts.

Hry shadow cat. Room adjustments are many times can be a bigger jump in equipment. I almost got the 14s1 last year but settled for the 8005 until finances would allow. I had a chance to buy an Sa10 for $4400 Last year and just couldn't do it at the time. The seller offered it to me at the low price because of an inferior product he sold me 15 years ago I think. I won't say who he is but he is one of the good ones left

blueranger

Kind of in the same boat............I live rural, maybe two hours from decent audio salons in either Baltimore or DC, so  my experience is primarily based on my experience. No audiophile friends, music lovers yes, audiophiles no. Picked up a Marantz SA14s1 a few weeks ago..............love it, probably my last CD player. I'd read Elizabeth's experience with her SA-10, but that one is a bit out of my range, so the 14s1 is about as good as I'm gonna get in this lifetime, but hey, it's pretty damn good :).........As an aside, I'm still finding ways to make my "room/setup" better. Surprising just how much performance you can squeeze out of the room itself with a little patience.......and little or no money :)

astru

You are saying that a discrete encoding using 16-bit resolution at 44KHz sampling rate of continuous signals from 0 to 20KHz is not lossless?

No, not at all. As I said:

PCM is very much a lossless format.

That doesn't mean PCM is perfect. But all audio formats are subject to limited bandwidth and various distortions, to some extent. But no, 16/44 PCM is not a lossy format.

You are saying that a discrete encoding using 16-bit resolution at 44KHz sampling rate of continuous signals from 0 to 20KHz is not lossless? You get quantization errors + you are guaranteed not to be able to recover perfectly the high frequencies. Please "unconfuse" me.

astru

... the point of the settings is that the PCM format is not lossless ... there is no agreed way to reconstruct the original acoustic signal.

You must be confused. PCM is very much a lossless format. That doesn't mean it's perfect, but it is most certainly lossless.

I believe the point of the settings is that the PCM format is not lossless, and Marantz provides the option to play with different settings because there is no agreed way to reconstruct the original acoustic signal. None of those settings work for DSD, which has "enough" resolution. In fact, I plan to try finding out which combination of settings on PCM comes as close as possible to DSD by using hybrid discs - but that’s a pretty substantial effort (for long winter evenings), and it will be recording-dependent most likely.

Elizabeth, if your unit is made for the US market then the XLR polarity follows the US standard: pin 2 is hot and pin 3 is cold. You should not reverse it. (BTW, phase and polarity are different things.) Also, except for dither, there is no "Off". You may keep Marantz default settings, but those do not provide the highest SNR, as they documented in the manual.

All these different setting combinations seem to me like a cop-out on the part of the designer.  Surely the goal is to design and manufacture a machine as faithful to the original signal as possible; one presumes one setting combination comes closer to that than all the others.  Their inclusion seems like putting a parametric equalizer on a preamp.

I do not see any new firmware for SA-10 on the Marantz website. Could you please elaborate on the firmware?

I got to play a little bit with the sound settings. (I can confirm that they only work on CD/PCM signal and not on SACD/DSD signal.) Some findings (in my system and to my ears):
Filter 2 sounds more natural overall, with better instrument attack. Although they say it would be brighter than Filter 1 and I complained about some brightness, I do not find that to be true in my system; maybe a little bit the opposite. Filter 1 increases the sound density; to a degree, it sounds more pleasant, but I feel that it is a coloring of the sound.
I ended up keeping the Dither 1 setting, but it was difficult to make a difference/choice between 1 and Off; setting 2 was not to my liking.
I changed NoiseShaper to setting 4th-1. I do agree that the sound stage seems a little tighter with 3th-1, especially by pinpointing vocals, but my Luxmans and the KEFs are already doing a fantastic job with the sound stage and I preferred the slightly perceived increase in overall sound definition of 4th-1.
These findings may be highly dependent on the source. My test discs were:
- Diana Krall: Turn Up the Quiet
- Katty Perry: MTV Unplugged
- Adam Cohen: We Go Home
- Dorati/London Symphony: Enesco’s Romanian Rhapsody 1 and Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies 1-6 (I can see some people preferring Filter 1 on this CD because instruments sound a little richer with that setting)

Hello, hap-z1es with firmware 18120r support sa-10？
Are you using latest firmware also? Thank you

@roxy54 I started with Ayon CD-07, then tried Sony HAP-Z1ES internal DAC, not happy as Ayon sounds better.  Both of them use Burr Brown 1796 DAC.  Then I purchased Denafrips Terminator R2R DAC 4 months ago, using Sony as a player with USB Audio connection.

anwar,
What DAC were you using prior to the SA-10?

@milpai @jafant thanks. yes I plan to share comparison of my digital gears.

A few things I found out during the first day of use. I’ve tried USB A and B inputs, coax not yet. SA-10 sounds the best when I play CD or SACD using its transport.

When playing from USB thumb drive (SA-10 USB A input), it must be formatted as FAT32. For sizes > 32GB, it needs to be formatted using third party utilities, not Windows. 1 problem with playing from USB thumb drive is that SA-10 does not support gapless playback. There is relay click between each file/track.

I tried Sony HAP-Z1ES hard disk player into SA-10 USB B input. No problem with gapless playback. Curious USB Cable is used. I still don’t understand why it sounds inferior compared to playing CD/SACD directly on SA-10. I also purchase high res music online and save into Sony’s HDD so this is something I need to fix.

Thank You - anwar

keep us posted as you massage the SA-10 into your system.

Happy Listening!

@anwar ,
Congratulations on the Marantz!
Would love to hear from you when you compare the Marantz, Denafrips and Oppo.

When I first got mine it was a wake up moment. I was very impressed with the player however after extended listenings its not going to replace my vinyl rig. Its really good digital. A big leap. However it does not always have the detail archival as my TT. 

I received my Marantz SA-10 today after 3 weeks wait.  Out of the box, it terminated my vinyl rigs and DAC.  I never know my system can sound that good; very high resolution, precise imaging, and good layering.  I am hearing a lot of things I never heard before.  Listening to SA-10 becomes addictive...

After it's broken in, I will share more...

I am baffled by what d2girls said too. Could you please clarify?
It would have made some sense if the statement were that it uses a new disc transport just developed by Marantz and there may be some issue or at least lack of data with that; thus, it may be better to use it only as a DAC. The DAC is what supposedly makes this player special.