Marantz SA-KI Ruby SACD Player

To be honest at this point I'm a little disappointed. I was hoping it would be at least as good as my SA11s3 if not a little better.The Ruby doesn't sound bad, it just doesn't seem to be as open and transparent as the SA11s3. Maybe I'm expecting too much from the Ruby. I read elsewhere that the Ruby needs a lot of time to break-in. Music Direct said to give it at least 100 hours. I have about 75 hours on it so far and I'm hoping with some more break-in it will open up a little. I'll report back after I get a couple hundred hours on the unit.

rsfphil

Yes, the Ruby will require several hundred hours of break-in. I own a SA-11 S2 Reference player. At will, talk about any issue(s) experienced with the SA-11S3 ?

Happy Listening!

 What filter are you running? I started with #1 and don't feel Im missing anything. #2 is supposed to be more detailed. I just feel  it has a nice analog feel to it. It really makes average to good CDs sound better. Of course ,I only have about 10 hours on it, but Im very optimistic. Notice that it runs on the warm side....

This is the note that I sent in with the repair.

1. When the unit is first turned on the drawer won’t open and the display won’t go through the usual cycling routine. The display just reads “Disc”.
2. It takes between 5 and 10 minutes and can take as long as 20 minutes before the drawer will finally open. During this time the display still reads “Disc”.
3. Once the drawer is open I can put a cd in, press play and every thing works fine, but the display still reads “Disc”.
4. If I turn the unit off and turn it back on a couple of seconds later the same thing happens. The drawer won’t open and the display just reads “Disc” and it takes a few minutes for the drawer to finally open. This happens when I press the open/close button on the remote or the cd player.

It got to the point where the drawer wouldn't open at all. The laser had to be replaced plus a couple of other parts (which they had), but they also had to replace a pc board which was unavailable.

I'm pretty sure I could have used the unit as a dac, but then I would have to buy a decent transport, digital cable and power cord and find a spot on my rack (which had no empty spaces) to put it on. I just felt it was time for a new player. 

Right now I'm using #2. I tried them both and quite frankly I didn't hear much if any diference. You said the player runs on the warm side. Do you mean how the music sounds or the actual temperature of the player? The reason I'm asking is because the SA11s3 ran very warm. I would feel the top of the player and it felt much warmer than I felt it should. It was just slightly less warm than my PM11s3. When I removed a cd the cd felt warm. I've had many CD players over the last 30 years and this was the first time I ever experienced this with a source component or a ss preamp. I didn't know if that's how was supposed to be or if there was something wrong. Maybe that excessive heat caused the player to fail. The Ruby on the other hand runs just warm enough so that when you touch the top you know the unit is on. The difference was night and day. If your Ruby runs slightly warm I wouldn't worry about it.