Marantz Announces SA-10 SACD Player with USB DAC
December 9th, 2016
The SA-10 replaces the SA-7, the previous Marantz Reference disc player. Although widely acclaimed, the SA-7 was purely a disc player but with the changing audio landscape and the rise of high-resolution audio and computer-stored music, change was inevitable. Beyond it being a superb disc player for CDs, SACDs and even high-resolution music burned on recordable media, the SA-10 is a state-of-the-art digital-to-analog converter. It uses unique technology to extract every last nuance from digital music files with a combination of tried-and-tested Marantz audiophile practice and some highly innovative solutions developed specifically for this flagship product.
Today's digital technology has made it possible to replace conventional digital-to-analog conversion with something much more advanced, allowing the SA-10 to become the first player/USB-DAC that doesn't actually have a DAC. The reason is Marantz Musical Mastering, a brand-new approach to a problem almost 35 years old – making the most of music stored in digital form without introducing artifacts requiring extra processing after conversion. A two-stage process, MMM-Conversion and MMM-Stream, draws on Marantz expertise extending back to the first days of CD, and brings into play the company's commitment and experience in both SACD and the DSD format behind it.
The SA-10 is an exceptional player of both CD and SACD discs, but can also play high-resolution music stored on computer-burned discs, as well as being a high-end digital to analog converter for computer-stored music.
The new Marantz SA-10 is the latest model in a range of high-end players stretching all the way back to the dawn of CD: in the original CD-63, launched in 1983, it had the first high-end performance-tuned CD player, and that expertise has continued to be developed over more than 30 years. The SA-10 is designed to sets new standards, whether with music on disc or content streamed from a computer, and to become the New Reference in digital audio.
To achieve that, the SA-10 is a completely new design, drawing on all that experience in making great-sounding players but with virtually every part redesigned. That involved both innovation and some unique thinking, all in the cause of getting the best possible performance across a wide range of digital audio formats. The new model is an exceptional player of both CD and SACD discs, but can also play high-resolution music stored on computer-burned discs, as well as being a high-end digital to analog converter for computer-stored music.
From the unique new disc transport designed for this player all the way through to a complete rethink of the way digital audio data is converted into analog signals, the SA-10 is a 'clean sheet' design, the result of painstaking research and development and extensive listening in Marantz's custom-built listening facilities. That's symptomatic of the way Marantz has always done things: while it always aims for the most elegant engineering solution, the listening test is always the final arbiter.
That may all seem very complex, as well as making it clear just how much work has gone into the design of this player, but in essence at the heart of the SA-10 is a digital-to-analog solution that's as elegant as it is innovative, and developed by the Marantz engineering team for one very simple reason: 'Because Music Matters'.
