Marantz SA10 SACD CD Player

The Marantz SA10 SACD CD Player is the flagship SACD player in the range. This top-of-the-range unit is designed to set a new reference standard in disc playback. Rediscover your music, whether on disc or streamed from a PC or online. The playback is refined and has great clarity.

A redesigned transport can play both standard CDs and SACDs. The main feature is the upconversion that converts the playback to hi-res DSD for feeding to the built-in DAC. This gives a smoother sound. Lastly, there is a balanced output for feeding to the flagship PM-10 integrated amplifier.

Top quality disc transport

To get the best possible signal off the disc the Marantz SA10 SACD CD Player uses a highly stable transport. There are no second chances when playing music live, unlike ripping a CD. Therefore the mechanism retrieves the data as accurately as possible with no jitter or dropouts. The clamp ensures no disc wobble.

Beyond CDs

The Marantz SA10 SACD CD Player is more than just a CD player you can also enjoy hi-res playback from a computer, via USB. You can also input digital signals directly to the built-in DAC via conventional optical and coaxial digital inputs. Hi-res playback is possible with a sampling rate of 192khz at 24-bit resolution.

The DAC has been redesigned to take advantage of 1-bit DSD conversion. All of the data is upconverted to a much higher data rate than standard PCM signals. The result is a smoother sound. Moreover, there are selectable playback filters to optimize the sound to match the source.

Discs and SACD

SACDs are a special type of CD that can hold hi-res music in 1-bit DSD format. More on that below. You need a player that can play SACDs such as the Marantz SA10 SACD CD Player.

Also, there are now more than 10,000 titles available on the SACD format. The format has a higher storage capacity than standard CDs and can hold 110 minutes of music as well as multiple tracks.

Marantz Musical Mastering

DSD is at the core of the Marantz SA10 SACD CD Player and the way it handles data. DSD was developed as a more efficient way of storing digital audio. It was thought to be the closest to the original master tape. It uses 1 bit to encode the music as opposed to 16 bits for standard CDs.

However, it is sampled at a much higher rate. Several MHz in fact. The Marantz SA10 SACD CD Player upconverts all of the signals to DSD at 11.2mhz using the Proprietary MMM stream converter. The result is a very smooth and clear hi-res signal.

Built for posterity

The Marantz SA10 SACD CD Player shares the same design quality as the flagship PM-10 integrated amplifier. It is built to the highest possible standard using a double-layered copper-plated chassis.

This rejects any external noise and vibration. Moreover, the casework is made of thick non-magnetic aluminium panels. The chassis is also isolated by using machined aluminium feet.

Connectivity in a balanced system

The Marantz SA10 SACD CD Player is designed to go with the PM-10 integrated amplifier which is a balanced unit. As a result, it has balanced XLR outputs as well as standard RCA outputs. There are also digital optical and coaxial outputs.

Lastly, there are optical and coaxial digital inputs so that you can access the internal DAC. Balanced connectors were developed for use in the studio. Here there are often long cable runs using low-level microphone signals that are prone to noise pickup. Hence balanced cables are specially constructed using three wires to reject any noise.