Marantz SA-10 Vs Esoteric K-05Xs

@fauguy no you do not “have to” use i2s. My Aurender N200 into PS Audio DSD via USB comfortably beat SA10 playing high res from Qobuz or Tidal and DSD files from my local library on SSD. If you have to spin a physical SACD just get a transport with I2s out or a good SACD player like one of the Luxman units. Marantz in my opinion is just not good. By the way PS Audio DSD MkI is around $1200-$1400 now used without network card. Hard to beat for the money

@audphile1 ,

I do not own this player.

@audphile1 I had read that Luxman is high quality, not sure how they compare with the Esoteric K-07XS or Marantz SA-10. But I looked at the D-06u model and it appears you can only find used ones from 2014-2018 from Japan at 100v. Currently no US 120v ones are on sale on here on eBay.

@milpai nice and well thought out system you have there. If you want to try the SA-10 like I said if you find a killer deal on it you can flip it if you don’t like it. Use your oppo until you can try luxman or esoteric is what I’d recommend. I didn’t mean to rain on anyone’s parade here but I did want to offer my thoughts on the SA-10 based on the experience I had with it. 

@audphile1 ,

I am completely with you when you say that you don't mean to rain down on anyone's parade. All I was trying to say that sometimes certain products do not work in our own systems when most users are reporting gains in their system. In my case it was a power accessory filter. 90% of the folks here were reporting amazing gains when they added multiple such accessory in their system. If only 1 piece was added to my system, it made a big noticeable positive difference. But unfortunately, when I added more than one of that accessory, it ruined the sound. I did report as such here and then another gentleman reported that he experienced the same.

So you did report that the SA-10 did not work in your system and everyone should respect that because you genuinely reported what you experienced. At least folks have a reference of cases where some component might or might not work. I have mentioned it before and will say it again - I rely more on forums and user experiences rather than paid reviewers to make my buying choice. Many times we do not have options to go out and hear a component and in such cases I have found that user recommendations are super helpful. I do take recommendations only from folks who have been on any site for a while and not just a day or month.