Upgrading a CD/SACD player with integral DAC

Nice to hear from you again pettyofficer.  Funny you mentioned those blue lights. Is there a switch to turn them off? There's a small blue LED light on my Shunyata Hydra Denali Power Conditioner that's like an eye piercing strobe light. God knows what they were thinking. When I saw the Ruby had more blue lights, first  thought was here we go again. There's no way to turn the Hydra Denali's off, but you implied in your post you could turn the Ruby's off, so you've got my hopes up. If there is a switch those blue lights will never see the light of day. 

Thanks for providing a guideline on the amount of to to burn the CD player in. That's way less than my Magico A3 speakers which take 400 hours, if I'm remembering correctly. This will hopefully be the last component to purchase so collecting CD's should be all that's left to do, which seems to be your preference as well. I'll have to get a few SACDs to try out to see what difference they make.Can any of those be had at less than an arm and a leg?  There are a lot of high quality fifties jazz reissues now were you can get up to eight good quality Redbook discs at a shot for ten to twenty dollars. You can't beat bargains like that.  You just have to avoid sets that are MP3 based rehashes. 

I agree with you that the simplicity of the Ruby helps it to avoid the issues that multiple source players might have. It's almost always better to keep things simple with electronics if you can.Can't wait for the Ruby to arrive tomorrow.

Mike

Funny you mentioned those blue lights. Is there a switch to turn them off?

Yes you can turn the blue lights and the display off.
I would suggest going to the Marantz website and downloading the Ruby manual for answers.

btw, since it's being mentioned: You can set the Ruby to turn off the Headphone amp and the digital output circuits when not in use, and it shuts off power to the optical drive when that isn't being used as default. 

Thanks sebrof. I'll take a look at the manual right now and turn off anything not going to be used when setting the Ruby up after it arrives tomorrow. I didn't know the Ruby had a headphone amp. I should try plugging in my old Pioneer headphones (vintage 1970s') and see if they still work before turning that off. 

Mike

Hello Skyscraper,

     Ditto on the info from Sebrof. I received the paper manual with my unit, and it covers all of your concerns in detail. The lights can easily be turned off, the display can be turned off, the digital output can be turned off, the headphones amp can be turned off, etc. If the blue lights bother you, it is not a deal breaker. They are not stabbingly bright blue, just a nice light glow. I am usually a stickler for such things, but I don't think it affects SQ that much. It just strikes me as a nice asthetic, but for certain turn it off if you desire.
     Just a note on the headphone amp, mine is internally turned off. The output impedance is listed as 32 Ohms, which I heard should be one tenth of the input impedance of the headphones used. Thirty two seems awfully high, not sure if that is a typo ( Maybe 3 to 2 Ohms possibly ? ). It shouldn't damage your headphones, but it might make low impedance phones sound sluggish. This presumes that the 32 is a legit measurement. I heard that a separate Marantz headphone amp/ Dac is a killer for driving phones. Give it a shot and let me know how it turns out. 

It’s been almost two days having the Marantz Ruby CD/SACD player installed in the system. Even right out of the box the player has been impressive, and performing exactly as described by those of you who have one indicated it would.

It has particularly shined when playing well recorded CD’s. On the John McLaughlin/Shakti Natural Elements CD I discovered the high frequency content that my old Marantz 8005 had been rolling off as Mahler aptly indicated it did. L. Shankar’s violin playing in the highest frequencies was exquisitely rendered on that recording.

On good recordings each instrument had a sense of detail, fullness, and space about it that was clearly an improvement as pettyofficer described, including more "air and harmonic content". The clarity sebrof described is certainly there.too

As far as vocals were concerned I almost fell over listening to Emmylou Harris’ Wrecking Ball album. Her voice was so fully realized and beautifully rendered it could hardly be believed. On instrumental jazz, Miles Davis never sounded better on the Seven Steps to Heaven CD, again a fully realized performance that demonstrated nuance without any upper register harshness.

Bass performance has been deep and tight so far on a number of recordings, including Jaco Pastorius’ on Weather Report’s Birdland cut on their Heavy Weather recording, and the baritone sax on Los Lobos’ Kiko album, not to mention White Stripes bass heavy Seven Nation Army cut on their Elephant CD. Scott LeFaro’s bass on Bill Evans excellent in every respect Waltz for Debby live recording, was particularly well realized and taut.

To be fair, on less well recorded albums there was less for the Ruby to pull out of the digital grooves. On Joni Mitchell’s For the Roses CD, which sounded great on the 8005, I really couldn’t recognize much difference in the playback on the Ruby. I’ll have to try some of her other albums. John Coltrane’s My Favorite Things at Newport was a similar experience. Now when the Ruby has a chance to break in in some, we’ll see what a difference that makes. I’m looking forward to hearing how much better an SACD recording might sound too.

Jafant, you wanted some feedback on the Ruby’s performance so there it is. Thanks for your initial recommendation on the Marantz Ruby CD/SACD. I’m quite pleased thus far.

Mike