TRL Marantz Sa-14



After speaking to Paul at TRL I am very curious to hear from those who own this unit what improvements do you hear with the player before and after the mod.

The SA-14 sounds weak in the bass and has no dynamics in comparison to some players like the Sony Scd-1 in stock form. Has anyone compared the TRL Sa-14 to the Sony Scd-1?
la45

Nice reporting Sbayne. Too early to pass judgement and perhaps your keen ears are indeed on track. Microdynamics is part of coherency and synergy. I am sure it will come thru eventually.

If it does not then SA-14 is the next stop where by all reports its no slouch in that category.
Sbayne-

Yes, very thorough and thoughtful comments.

However, all those great attributes have not melted together into one very believable sound. I still know I’m listening to a CD.

There are many who believe that the TRL players actually take near 750 hours to fully relax and settle in. Your sense of silver wire in the mix is likely accurate. I think they use some of their proprietary power cord wire to the IEC inputs and this is long break in stuff.

Curious as to the rest of your system/cables, etc. I found with the TRL 595 I had that it exposed some of the weaker areas in my integrated amp and speakers a bit more. For me, anyway, it kind of put my system components out of sync.

I ended up having TRL mod my integrated amp.

I eventually moved up to the SA14. As good as the 595 was, and I am sure the SA8260 is, the SA14 does take the next step to suspending disbelief even moreso.

After the SA14 broke in, I ended up moving up to the next level of ACI monitors.

Moral of story- send the damn thing back before you end up upgrading your whole stinking system :)

Just kidding-but it does get you working on the whole synergy and system blance thing.

Keep us posted.
Thanks Sbayne, I was wondering how the 8260 was sounding. Please give us more feedback in another month. I will be intrested to hear of any improvements after you feel the unit is broke in and everything is coming together. My stock 8260 waits for your final judgement, or start looking to the upgrade path. I hope the TRL mod path is the way to go. Sounds like the mod has already improved everything a great deal.
Brouch - based on my listening the TRL mod is worthy of recommendation as it stands now. I'm just trying to squeeze that last drop of performance out of it. I should mention I've got it sitting on Mapleshade footers with heavyhats. The power cord is a ZCable Red Lighting. So if you consider the total cost I have in this player the $500 TRL mod is well worth it on a cost/benefit basis even if the player doesn't improve with even more break-in (IMHO of course).
I got TRL to upgrade my Audiomeca Enkianthus X dac, and I've been burning it in. I noticed some of the same things you mentioned at first, and it definitely takes a long burn in. However, right now the improvement the mod made is bordering on incredible. I'll post a full review in a week after I have ~400 hours or so on it. It was money WELL spent...

Jason