bierfeldt
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Marantz Raising it Game and Sound United
caphill
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bierfeldt wrote:

Looking at these two new Reference Products from Marantz, the PM-10 and SA-10 - it seems like Marantz is doing its best to try and deliver a higher end product. Like they are trying to push into a different competitive set.

The PM-10 is fully balanced, dual mono design and deliver Class A output with wattage doubling as impedance is halved. The SA-10 is a new way to approach a DAC and another member here has already given a rave review.

Marantz seems like it is steadily producing better and better products over the past 10 years. All of their Network players (NA-XXXX products) deliver superb DACs and they make spectacular pre/pros for the money. Lets just hope that D+M being acquired by Sound United won't foul up this momentum.

Actually the PM10 output is class D, not class A.

bierfeldt
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And it seems like they are avoiding saying that explicitly. Good to know. I have a cheap Marantz class D in the M-CR510 and it sounds spectacular, and for the $450 I paid for it was an absurdly good value. I have faith this will sound incredible. I have to get out and hear both of these.

caphill
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Nowaday class D amps would sound nearly as good as the class AB amps.
Frankly, I've witnessed and heard the Classe Delta series class AB amps vs their Sigma series class D amps and I will have to say that their Delta series class AB designs still have absolute advantage in fidelity over their Sigma series class D amps. But by no means that the Sigma series class D amps sounded digital.....far from it.

I've also heard the NAD M27 hybrid class D amp and it sounded very good although I wished it would exhibit greater levels of warmth and fluidity

David Harper
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all placebo

bierfeldt
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Looking at the Marantz press release and any new I can see on these units they are using a "switiching" power supply but want to avoid calling it a Class D and then they specifically make this claim:

"Another important part of the noise-reduction here is the fact that the PM-10 is a purely analog amplifier: many rival designs are today including digital-to-analog conversion, or adopting digital amplification and volume control, but Marantz keeps things as clean and simple as possible with its highly-developed all-analog design."

Is it a situation where this is really a Class G/H like Krell's iBias or Bob Carver's Tracking Downconverter?

caphill
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bierfeldt wrote:

Looking at the Marantz press release and any new I can see on these units they are using a "switiching" power supply but want to avoid calling it a Class D and then they specifically make this claim:

"Another important part of the noise-reduction here is the fact that the PM-10 is a purely analog amplifier: many rival designs are today including digital-to-analog conversion, or adopting digital amplification and volume control, but Marantz keeps things as clean and simple as possible with its highly-developed all-analog design."

Is it a situation where this is really a Class G/H like Krell's iBias or Bob Carver's Tracking Downconverter?

I think what Marantz implied by analog integrated amp was that they did not include DAC so the circuitry is pure analog in order to keep things clean and simple. The PM-10 uses two separate power supplies for both its preamp & amp sections. It uses a toroidal transformer power supply for its preamp section only and uses switching power supply for its power amp section. I believed the output stage of the amp section is also class D but there's no way of confirming that.

Cause some amps, such as Linn amps and Devialet, use switching power supply in order to keep the unit as compact as possible but their output stages are not class D. I know the fact that Linn amplifiers output stages are class AB, whereas Devialet's output stages are class A.

Allen Fant
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Has anyone auditioned the SA-10 spinner?

David Harper
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according to the laws of physics and aerodynamics the bumblebee cannot fly. His body is too big and heavy and his wings are too small. But the bumblebee, not knowing this, buzzes merrily along without a care in the world. I think maybe this is how it is with audiophiles. Even though there is no scientific evidence that anything they believe is true,they continue to hear what they believe they hear. That one wire sounds better than another. That one preamp sounds better than another.That an integrated amp must sound better than an AVR. This is why high-end audio exists. Maybe they're right. Who knows? And this is what Micheal Green audio is all about. The power of suggestion. Loosen some screws. Put your CD player on top of little wooden blocks. Wait till you hear the improvement. This is what keeps us all interested, isn't it?

commsysman
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Allen Fant wrote:

Has anyone auditioned the SA-10 spinner?

I purchased the SA-10 acouple of months ago, and the sound quality is by far the best I have ever heard from any CD player.

When I got it I was unsure whether it would be a significant step up from my OPPO BDP-95 (which is very good), and was trying it out with the idea that I would ship it back if it didn't deliver a really major improvement.
I was hoping, but a bit sceptical also; it's a lot of money.

It took me about 15 minutes to realize that this was the real deal; a CD/SACD player that delivers a whole new level of sonic accuracy and beautiful sound that I have never before heard, except for the the every best analog (vinyl) records.

It is expensive, but I will guarantee you that any music lover who hears this player will want one so bad that the price probably won't stop them from buying one.

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