An SACD Lesson Learned and the Marantz SA 1

I won't bore you with fine details here, but I started listening to hi-res digital in the early 2000s with SACD and DAD.  In 2011, I started buying hi-res downloads and playing them on any one of several computers I built over the years to feed assorted DACs.  I have (and have had for a long time) a really good analog rig.  I attend live jazz (club jazz) events frequently.  Good sound and live music are not foreign to me, and as an amateur musician myself, I supplement those things with my own playing, although nowhere close in quality!

Back in the early 2000s, I bought my first SACD-capable player.  I owned several after that.  Most were low-dollar universal type players of the Best Buy variety.  I bought several SACDs.  About 12 years ago, I bought a Marantz SA 8004.  That was by far the best SACD unit I'd ever purchased.  I was afraid to spend too much money on it.  What if it went obsolete?  Also, I sort of "assumed" that if SACD was so superior, it should be noticeable on cheap players simply by default.  By the late twenty-teens I was so deep in the hi-res download thing (and analog) that SACD went on the back burner.  I heard improvements with the hi-res downloads.  SACD, not as much.  On the cheap players, none at all.

Entering today, I began thinking about SACD again.  I bought an SACD-capable Blu-Ray player and an audio extractor and went to my DAC with the output.  Very nice!  I liked what I heard.  There was a certain "something" with SACD that the hi-res downloads did not have.  A kind of "presence" and absence from noise.  It was pretty impressive.  Granted, I had some hi-res downloads that overall were superior, but they were coming out of a dedicated music server and going to a DAC with an I2S cable with oven-controlled FEMTO clocks all over the place.  That doesn't hurt.  Like many people out there, when it comes to digital, newer HAS to be better.  Although I have been less than impressed with hi-res streaming, finding ripped CDs vastly superior.  Hi-res downloads are a different story, though.

I began considering an SACD player again.  This format, in its 27th year of existence, never did make a big splash, but the High End magazines still love it.  Several audiophile labels still make discs.  It's a little daunting that the only company in the world that actually makes the discs themselves is in Japan, but they did a whole rebuild/retool/refurb of their multi-format plant.  It's a Sony owned subsiderary.  When they put it all back together, SACD was reinstalled!  If it wasn't profitable, they would have eliminated it. 

I wanted to find a dedicated SACD/CD player of some notoriety on the used market that was priced reasonably.  Well, good luck with that.  Available players have some time on them.  Several used Marantz and Sony models are known for bad lasers.  The companies don't have parts.  There are others out there with the same problem.  Krell, for example.  Then there are the Oppo players who seem to run forever.  Esoteric and Accuphase, too, if you have the money.  I found lots of Marantz players that were $3500 fifteen years ago that quote, "need work," and they still want over a grand.  I finally, through a friend of a friend, found a Marantz SA 1.  This was their first SACD player.  It used the all-metal super heavy Philips CDM10 transport; the player internally has copper shielding boxes for the analog circuits all over the place.  All of the power supply capacitors are Elna Audio Grade, Elna Cerafine, and in the audio areas, Elna Silmic.  Lots of film caps.  Tantalum resistors in critical areas.  Fully balanced discrete analog circuitry.  The D/A conversion is handled by 4 x Philips 1-bit TDA1547 dual converters.  This was their premium DAC chip.  It was only used in premium stuff.  There are 3 transformers, and thick cast and machined aluminum everywhere, comprising a beautiful champagne gold 40 lbs player.  It was their flagship from back in the day, and in 2001, it retailed for $7500.  But, IT'S 25 YEARS OLD!!!  Certainly, compared to the stuff going on now, it's not going to compare.  Not to mention, these were known for burning up lasers and bad displays.  This had both.

1 new laser, 17 cold solder joints, and 1 transistor later, (along with lots of time) later, I have a fully-functioning player.  It was missing the remote, so I ordered an aftermarket replacement for $30 that works fantastically.  Believe it or not, one of these players was sold in Europe on an audio site for the equivalent of $2900 American.  I guess if they work, they're rather collectable.

WHAT HAVE I LEARNED??  First off, don't assume that old=bad in the digital world.  There are cases where it's not true, and this is one of them.  This player does redbook CD in such a way that if I had to live with that and that alone, I'd be OK.  I've had some expensive disc spinning systems in my 40 years as an audiophile, but this is the best Redbook performance I've ever encountered.  A touch warmish, yet highly detailed, even a touch analytical, but it doesn't offend, with a massive soundstage and bass that's tight, tuneful, and very, very powerful.  I dug out my SACDs, and THAT I was not prepared for.  For the most part, on the same recordings, the SACD played on the Marantz will trump the hi-res download file on my Eversolo T8 and Denafrips Venus II 15th connected with a DH Labs Silver Stream 2.1 used as I2S.  Yes, I hear you, you think I've gone deaf.  That's OK.  I thought so too.  The problem is my audiophile friends have heard this now, and they hear what I hear.  I have this analog system that, when you combine the deck with the cables with the cartridge with the phono pre, totals a retail price of around 18K$.  Some SACDs outperform their analog counterparts on this SA 1 player, which is 25 years old.  So, what is it that I'm hearing and NOT hearing?

Provided that we have a good recording and good mastering (which, with SACDs only coming from audiophile labels anymore, most stuff is really good), it's like this:  The music naturally emerges from an inky black background.  Highly 3-dimensional with a very wide soundstage.  Image focus is TIGHT.  There is a full-range production that just plays without favoritism or being recessed anywhere.  Vast amounts of detail that produce the "twang" and the dark textures simultaniously.  The dynamics seem boundless.  The window looking in is so clean that nothing can hide.  The noise floor is like, gone.  It's just music.  It's what I SWORE I had with my hi-res system.  As it turns out, a flagship SACD player from 25 years ago demonstrated what this really sounds like, or maybe this is just a taste of what it sounds like!  Some, SOME, hi-res files do win, however, SACD is usually the champ.  

This rolls into a second thing I've learned: The value of physical media.  It would appear that, for the audio perfectionist, physical media is still where it's at, at least based on this.  When SACD is played on the SA 1, I can easily hear the analog-like promises, and those of higher resolution both come to light.  I have to say, I really like this player, I don't care how old it is.  Yet, these were never known for durability.  Should I sell it before it breaks again, then get something else?  Should I keep it and use it until it won't give anymore?  The mind wonders.  I'm sure that this level of sound would be obtainable today for quite a bit less than $7500, or would it?  I'm pretty sure it would be, and these SACDs (I've even bought nearly 30 additional SACDs on the new and used markets since getting this player) sound SO good, I can't imagine having to leave it behind.  Hearing things you've never heard before can do that to a man.

So, why is this?  Honestly, player quality is one factor.  Good quality sounds good.  BUT, I think it's more about physical media than anything.  It requires a legitimately good player, but I had something cross my mind.  Let's say that I just purchased a hi-res download.............

I need to download it now.  I'm on my computer, which is saturated with noise due to multiple switching power supplies.  I begin the download.  This download is coming from.....???  We worry about what digital cable to use, how long it is, but this hi-res file of.....Steely Dan Aja is coming from 1500 miles away, it deals with its own computers at HD Tracks or wherever, and along the way it goes through countless conversions and boosters until it bounces off of a satellite and returns to earth, where it comes here via????   Then it goes through miles and miles of coax and fiber optic until it loads into my noisy HP.  How do these files manage to sound as good as they do?

If nothing else, I've learned that the slow demise of high-quality physical digital media is saddening, because it can be far greater than I ever imagined.