Marantz SA-10 arriving Monday!

The SA-10 is a superb CD player in both formats. Give it the right power cord and it can go against units at 3X the price. Their a rightness about the sound, the design where it by passes the DAC and the conversion 11-Mhz DSD and direct out to your preamp has done wonders to CD and SACD as good as my Esoteric and CD reproduction better. Sold my K-01 and I will miss it, it was a wonderful unit for its time but time marches on, does the Marantz beat it in every way, no, the K-01 is a beast as far as slam, bass and dynamic range, the Marantz gains in other areas, either one you could not go wrong, depending on your system one might meet your needs better, but if you heard the SA10 with a good matching power cord you shake your head. 22K vs. 8K. A classic. Note with a few power cords I tried sounded like hi-fi. The right cord it comes to life. So try different cords till you find the utopia one. SA 10 is a great player, a great value and worth very penny plus some.

No the Esoterics and Sony's and Marantz have been fine, not to say they never would have issues. Japanese players I've used have work and worked well even after I sold them one 15 years later and still was going it was Sony CPA 7ES. The 1st player that blurred the Vinyl copy to the CD copy. 

The small boutique ones are build from using OEM parts, the 3 I've used all had issues and one had several due to the design and they replaced it with 3 new ones. The last one worked the best. They make good amps and preamps so I will not say the names. But lessoned learned. 

One of the best power cords for the Marantz' and others that float the ground, 2 pin IEC inputs does not cost an arm or a leg, it is the Luxman Power Cords JPA 1500 this cord came with my C800F preamp and I never used it due to being a "stock cord" well I did finally try it and my jaw dropped. 

The key is plugging it with the right polarity (Pins are both the same so you can flip it), The Luxman as a polarity check on the back on the preamp and lights up if the plug orientation is wrong with the writing facing up the light turns off showing correctly polarity. With the arrows and writing fact up above the ground opening, not facing down towards the ground input. I purchased a 2nd one to try with the Marantz SA-10 and again a home run. I tried it on my Sub Woofer that using floating ground also, 2 pin IEC and the same positive impact. So good I no longer look for a power cord for these units. This same cord is used for their high powered amps also. Even a reviewer said the stock cord was really good. Not that expensive and beat others costing 3-4 times as much, so good design by Luxman. 

This lame argument of vinyl vs. CD no longer is an issue, it now more the quality of the production itself. Vinyl sucks and so does CD if the source is badly recorded, compressed, or just processed.  I grew up with vinyl. 

So the SA-10 is real good, Esoteric K-01 is really good and some others with today's DAC's used and 30 years to understand the format, much like viny improved between the 30's to the 50's the sound quality was night and day better. Digital also had the same growth. 

I have 1,300 plus CD's some collectible and no way am I going to start over and rebuy what I already own again, and some will never be on vinyl. I love vinyl but I don't miss it one bit nowadays that how good these new generations of players are. Today your room as more impact on the quality of sound than any current CD player or Turntable or stream file. 

The formats are just that good today and in the present, I like the physical so I will keep buying, those who like portable music and buying on tunes they like Streaming downloads work great, but that is not my cup of tea. 

Long burn-in 2 months or so). Filter 1, Digital out off, Dither 0 or 1 depending on your system and room. A wonderful player in all formats. Noise shaper 3-1. 

Big Chill was poorly mastered. But it also was out of absolute phase. If you are using XLR's with the SA-10 go to settings and check the phase and reverse it and listen. I check all my CD's to make sure my phase setting is correct. Some gear pin 2_is hot or cold depending on the gear, but many recordings including vinyl were recorded out of absolute phase. My Quad speakers really let you know when the phase settings are wrong. 

SA-10 is a stellar multi-talent player. This replaced an Esoteric K-01 which was great, but I don't miss it at all. I enjoyed my time with it. The Marantz needs a top-grade power cord, I found the Audioquest Blizzard and Thunder to bring out all the musical ability this player has, I heard it sound thin, all by switching a power cord, so this tells you how important a power cord is the 1st piece of gear that will feed the rest of your system. The power supply is larger and you can tell because the chassis becomes very warm, while past players like the SA7s1 did not. My Esoteric got very warm also in fact much more, due to it having 4-transformers in the power supply. Well made CD players are like phono cartridges, each gives you a different balance of sound, Esoteric was upfront, dynamic taking no prisoners, the Marantz is about balance, elegance, more laid, back but more natural sounding, it does not throw music at you it presents it to you so you feel like your listening to a performance in from of you. It can rock, the bottom end can shake your room if your speakers are up to it, yet the midrange and highs sound just right, open, airy, with vocals having body and weight to them to sound real. A very nice player, grab one while you can, sounds best using XLR outputs.