Upgrading a CD/SACD player with integral DAC

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

Hello Skyscraper,

     I did mention that you might be pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately, there is a bane over higher resolution devices. For those few recordings that weren't mastered well, their welts are also magnified. I am a great enthusiast over early John Barry works, especially the early James Bond OST. Unfortunately, the early CDs of Thunderball, Goldfinger, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever, OHMSS, the SQ of these selections sounded atrocious. However, the remastered CDS are like heaven to these ears. 
     I have experienced various SQ of older recordings being released on SACD, basically because these aged recordings were never remastered for SACD. For newer recordings that were mastered for SQ, SACD brings out the best in these releases. Like I said, it is a mixed bag of results between CDs, as well as SACDs. Simply to transfer a terrible master ( CD ) onto a SACD, no remastering, is simply doing SACD on the cheap. No it is not going to sound better, and will likely sound worse. This is not SACD'S fault, it is simply revealing more the errors on the master.
     More recent music that was created with a higher sound quality for SACD, these really show the superiority of the format. I would suggest that you might find remastered  CDs, or even music files, of John Coltrane and Joni Mitchell.
You could also try the alternate digital filter on the Ruby. There is also a setting on the device for CD, Stereo SACD, and Multi-Channel SACD. Make sure you follow the directions when you make your selection. Multi-Channel DSD is a real treat with the Ruby. The Dianna Krall MC release may be expensive, but the SQ is well worth it. I would purchase maybe a handful of such disks, just for a special treat. SD CD's and music files can still sound very impressive on the Ruby.

Hello Skyscraper,

     I just listened to Joni Mitchell's  For The Roses, damn good sounding recording. It was originally released in 1972, and what I heard certainly didn't sound that ancient in SQ. What I listened to had excellent high frequency response as well. This I could tell via Spotify from a non-audiophile Samsung Android A6, feeding an Oppo HA2 SE headphone line in,  with the HA2  driving the Oppo PM-3 headphones ( Not exactly the last word in high frequency response ). Even being this handicapped, the SQ sounded like it was recorded only yesterday on a modern high quality recording rig. I am not kidding you. I was certainly not listening to an early release of this music, I smell a remastered version in the works. Can you tell me which release you are currently using, as this CD has a long history of numerous re-releases, including an HDCD version. I presume that this isn't your version. Normal CD players can't play HDCD, or so I thought.
     The latest CD releases of For The Roses are as follows- Asylum Records U.S. release catalog# 5057-2 in 1990, Electra Records Japanese release catalog# wpcr-831 in 1995, and an Asylum Records HDCD  version release from Japan catalog# wpcr-80281 in 2015. I am not certain,  but I think that the Japanese releases ( Original American Selection ) can be ordered in pristine condition via CDJapan, via their website. You can see how convoluted it is trying to get the best version of your favorite music.  Still, I know that what I am hearing is the latest remastered update. It sounds very clear with no noise or hiss, and the dynamics are certainly not compressed.  
     Take what I am going to say next with a few grains of salt. I once borrowed a Shunyata conditioner with their associated power chords. I found that for some ( Not All ) equipment, it sometimes will slightly compress the dynamics. Usually, this only pertains to Esoteric equipment that already utilize some form of power conditioning themselves, creating an overkill situation. Don't unplug everything. Only try replugging just one component from the Shunyata at a time into bare wall, then listen to the same musical passages , see if you still hear the same effect. It may very well be that this is not your problem, but utilizing a process of elimination might be helpful. Hopefully, this info might be of some use to you.

Pettyofficer. I listened to Joni Mitchell's Blue album last night and that sounded very good. The pressing of For the Roses was done in Germany by Record Service GMBH, Alsdorf. It did not list a pressing date, only mentioning it was a remaster of the 1972 recording in a digital format. It did state on the back cover, "The CD version can reveal limitations of the source tape". It is a Redbook CD, nothing special. I'm guessing by that quote they were confessing they weren't happy with the remastering they did, recognizing it's limitations.

I do have both a CD version and a vinyl record of Miles Davis' Saturday Night at the Blackhawk Volume1, which I played back to back last night on the Ruby and then the VPI Classic 2/ Ortofon 2M black cartridge turntable. It's not the world's greatest recording, but it was interesting to listen for differences. Both versions sounded fairly similar with the analog version sounding a bit more natural or "analog" so to speak, but you really had to be attentive to tell the difference. I could recognize a bit more on the CD version that the bass was poorly miked. Both were equally enjoyable though.

I'll try taking the Shuyata Denali out of the loop a component at a time as you suggest, but I'm not experiencing any detectable issues with it otherwise, and I do love the noise-free inky black backgrounds I attribute to its use. But it would be a worthwhile experiment as the absence of background noise might be attributed to the other components. This new system is a marvel though noise-wise, compared to my old Phase Linear, Dahlquist DQ 10 and Bang and Olufsen 4002 set up, that I had for forty years or so. No hiss or hum at all any more. 

I actually like listening to CD's more than records now, not for the sound quality, but for the absence of pops and crackles of other vinyl surface noise you get no matter how well you take care of your records. I should dig out my old Burwen Transient Noise Eliminator and try that out again on some records for fun. It would probably be an audio disaster though. 

By the way, where do you get your SACD's. I tried to find some on Amazon last night but they kept routing me back to their standard CD and Vinyl selections when I typed in SACD. That's a good point you make that newer recordings expressly made for SACD pressing would likely to yield better results than reissues of old material might. Some of those older jazz remasters are surprisingly good though. Take care,

Mike