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
I've owned Tube Research products for over 13 years and it has always taken a long period of time for them to break in and achieve the "TRL House Sound".

I don't like what ERS does, and I won't use it anywhere in my system. It kills the micro dynamics and life, IMHO.

Quicksilver is another story ...

FYI, I've applied Quicksilver everywhere I could on my SA-14 before sending it off to TRL. It returned sounding quite different.

Jack

However they are doing it everything on the TRL Marantz SA-14 is stellar. Its funny you mentioned the ERS cloth. Since the player just reached the 200+ break in mark, the addition of the ERS cloth elevated the sound especially in the midband to upper frequency area.

The sound is more refined with the cloth. No I have not opened the player to peak at the mods as I did with the Sony 2000es but I will say this, I don't feel the need to since the music is all I care about.

I am using the old Focal tweeter (made famous by the old Wilson Watt system) and its very unforgiving if the source is not balanced at the top. The TRL Marantz is very balanced.

ERS may be part of their tweak toolchest, but it alone cannot explain the dramatic improvements they can obtain on typical units. I have used ERS extensively in my own tweaking activities, but I could never get my old CD players to sound like my TRL Sony 2000ES.

Quicksilver only takes 72 hours to settle in so it is not a major contributor to the long break-in period.

My now modified Marantz SA-14 unit is being shipped back to me this week from TRL. I may pop the cover out of curiosity to see what it looks like inside, but in the end my interest is to just enjoy the music, so I won't obsess about what they actually did to the unit.
Quicksilver is the real deal.
It is used by many professional modders, including TRL.
I would recommend trying it out as it makes a noticeable positive difference for many people.
TRL Family:

Please try the new Xtreme AV Quicksilver "GOLD" formulation. It is pretty amazing stuff. Wider & deeper stage, lower noise floor, increased micro dynamics, sharper more well defined imaging, higher resolution.

You will hear so much that was lost in the blur before. Lost details are now present.

Try it. You'll thank me later.

Jack