I got a Marantz SA10 last week, and I only have about 50 hours on it. While it is better in most respects than the Sony XA5400ES and XA9000ES that I also own, it exhibits a brightness that is quite annoying. Many female voices present a brightness/grain that was absent from Sony’s rendering (especially on SACDs). For example, Jacintha’s voice is super smooth, detailed, and beautiful on Sony, but gains a mild yet annoying shrill with the Marantz. Similar findings for Jacqui Naylor, Vanessa Fernandez, Julia Fordham and even Holly Cole. Do you experience anything similar with your player/system?
I do not have anything else bright in my system, from KEF Reference speakers to Luxman C900u and M900u amplification. The effect is a little less pronounced when switching interconnects from AQ Cheetah XLRs to Gabriel Gold Revelations RCAs, but not gone.
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Thank you for the fast reply! I thought the filters only work for CDs and not for SACDs. I am using a Wolff Carbon PC, so that should not be the issue. However, one other change that I made with the arrival of the SA10 is that I installed an Oyaide WPC-Z mounting frame with carbon plate on the outlet for the dedicated power line. I can only hope that is the source for the brightness. I have to add the Sony back and A/B test, and remove the new outlet frame. I will post the findings. |
Thank you, Elizabeth and Blueranger! I know exactly what you are talking about. However, in my system, the only two new changes are the SA10 replacing the XA5400ES and the addition of an aluminum/carbon outlet frame on the main outlet. I installed the dedicated line 7 years ago and terminated it at the time with an Oyaide R1 cryo outlet. That outlet powers two Furman Reference PCs, one for the amp, preamp, and CDP, and one for the subwoofer and some video components.
The other thing I can think of is that the SA10’s output level is higher than the Sony’s, so the preamp volume is now in a different range than it used to be (and that may mean for Luxman’s LECUA that it uses electronics/paths that have not been used much); still, I do not remember this type of brightness when the preamp was breaking in.
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With the Oyaide frame (bought on eBay from Japan and possibly fake) out, most of the brightness is gone. Jacintha's Moon River and Here's To Life became enjoyable again, for example. However, I hope the SA10 still needs break-in because her voice is not as in-the-room/unplugged
as with the Sony. Everything else is arguably better, from pinpoint imagining to instruments being more fleshed out and more natural sounding, with better decays. I just need female vocals to become a tad more natural sounding to love this player. |
I am baffled by what d2girls said too. Could you please clarify?
It would have made some sense if the statement were that it uses a new disc transport just developed by Marantz and there may be some issue or at least lack of data with that; thus, it may be better to use it only as a DAC. The DAC is what supposedly makes this player special. |
I do not see any new firmware for SA-10 on the Marantz website. Could you please elaborate on the firmware?
I got to play a little bit with the sound settings. (I can confirm that they only work on CD/PCM signal and not on SACD/DSD signal.) Some findings (in my system and to my ears):
Filter 2 sounds more natural overall, with better instrument attack. Although they say it would be brighter than Filter 1 and I complained about some brightness, I do not find that to be true in my system; maybe a little bit the opposite. Filter 1 increases the sound density; to a degree, it sounds more pleasant, but I feel that it is a coloring of the sound.
I ended up keeping the Dither 1 setting, but it was difficult to make a difference/choice between 1 and Off; setting 2 was not to my liking.
I changed NoiseShaper to setting 4th-1. I do agree that the sound stage seems a little tighter with 3th-1, especially by pinpointing vocals, but my Luxmans and the KEFs are already doing a fantastic job with the sound stage and I preferred the slightly perceived increase in overall sound definition of 4th-1.
These findings may be highly dependent on the source. My test discs were:
- Diana Krall: Turn Up the Quiet
- Katty Perry: MTV Unplugged
- Adam Cohen: We Go Home
- Dorati/London Symphony: Enesco’s Romanian Rhapsody 1 and Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies 1-6 (I can see some people preferring Filter 1 on this CD because instruments sound a little richer with that setting)
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I believe the point of the settings is that the PCM format is not lossless, and Marantz provides the option to play with different settings because there is no agreed way to reconstruct the original acoustic signal. None of those settings work for DSD, which has "enough" resolution. In fact, I plan to try finding out which combination of settings on PCM comes as close as possible to DSD by using hybrid discs - but that’s a pretty substantial effort (for long winter evenings), and it will be recording-dependent most likely.
Elizabeth, if your unit is made for the US market then the XLR polarity follows the US standard: pin 2 is hot and pin 3 is cold. You should not reverse it. (BTW, phase and polarity are different things.) Also, except for dither, there is no "Off". You may keep Marantz default settings, but those do not provide the highest SNR, as they documented in the manual. |
You are saying that a discrete encoding using 16-bit resolution at 44KHz sampling rate of continuous signals from 0 to 20KHz is not lossless? You get quantization errors + you are guaranteed not to be able to recover perfectly the high frequencies. Please "unconfuse" me. |
Elizabeth, take a look at page 8, bottom of the middle section. They use the word "phase" for polarity. However, all you need to know if that the unit comes wired with pin 2 hot (+) and pin 3 cold (-), as I posted in my previous message. I do not know the XLR polarity setting for Bryston BP-26; the Luxman C900u in my system allows to set the polarity for each input and for the output.
@clearthink: I have a PhD in engineering; the Redbook standard does not provide a guarantee for reconstructing perfectly the original acoustic signal |
Elizabeth, I mistyped something in my previous message. I meant to say "is that the unit" rather than "if that the unit". I am just trying to clarify the meaning of those Marantz settings.
Clearthink, can you enlighten us with an explanation for bit-perfect acoustic waves?
After that, we should get the discussion back on track to Marantz SA-10. This thread should be for people who own the player, had some experience with it, or may be interested in knowing more about the experience of those first two types of people.
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