No Room For Compromise

FOR Refined, faithful sound; stereo imaging; DAC; build

AGAINST Newer Apple iPhone compatibility issues

In our experience, Marantz’s top-end disc players have a tendency to become the stuff of hi-fi legend. Those with long memories will remember the superb CD-94 of the late 1980s and the CD-15 that followed it – or, more recently, the revered CD-7. The company doesn’t often produce top-end disc players, but when it does they are usually done right. So it proves again with the SA-10.

Notice we say disc rather than CD player, as the SA-10 also reads SACDs and music stored on DVD-ROMs. Disc file compatibility is impressive, ranging from 24-bit/192kHz FLACs and DSD128 all the way to ALAC, AIFF and MP3s.

In the past, Marantz would have secured a high-end transport from its then-parent company Philips, but now (thanks to a shortage of quality options) it has chosen a more difficult path and developed its own. The all-new SACD-M3 transport is designed to read the music data off the disc as accurately as possible first time around. Don’t be surprised to see versions of this transport filter down the company’s range in years to come.

Internal changes

It’s not just the transport that is new. Marantz has revised the entire signal path and come up with a new digital-to analogue section too. The company calls its system Marantz Music Mastering, and it incorporates elements of the single-bit conversion it has used in the past.

Take a look inside the product and it’s hard not to be impressed with the quality of the construction and components, and the care taken in the layout. It all looks so neat and tidy. This might be an expensive product, but it’s obvious where the money has gone.