I performed a full set of measurements on the SA-1 using CD data, then repeated a select few of the tests using Sony's "tentative" test SACD. The Marantz's maximum output level from CD was 2.363V unbalanced and 4.72V balanced, both above the CD Standard's 2V RMS. From SACD, the maximum level from the balanced outputs was lower, 4.41V. The XLRs were wired with pin 3 hot, the opposite of the AES standard, and so inverted absolute polarity. The unbalanced outputs did not invert polarity. The output impedance was consistent over most of the audioband, at 99 ohms…
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Fig.4 shows a 1/3-octave spectrum of the SA-1's balanced outputs while it decoded CD data representing a dithered 1kHz tone at -90dBFS. Level error is minimal, while the noise floor is low. The linearity (fig.5) is also excellent. As a result, the player's reproduction of an undithered 1kHz sinewave at -90.31dBFS (fig.6) is essentially perfect; the three discrete voltage levels and the band-limiting Gibbs Phenomenon "ringing" are easily discerned.
Fig.4 Marantz SA-1, 1/3-octave spectrum of dithered 1kHz tone at -90dBFS, with noise and spuriae, 16-bit data (right channel dashed…
Turning to SACD playback, fig.9 shows the SA-1's frequency response at -3dBFS, with the back-panel switch set to Standard (bottom traces) and Custom (top traces). Both traces feature extended ultrasonic response, but this was more extended at the Custom setting: -3dB at 45kHz vs 36kHz.
Fig.9 Marantz SA-1, balanced SACD frequency response at Custom (top) and Standard (bottom) settings (right channel dashed, 0.5dB/vertical div.).
DSD encoding also offers greater dynamic range and resolution than CD's 16/44.1kHz LPCM encoding. This is shown in fig.10, the spectra of low-…
"Ever wondered how the snowplow driver gets to work?"—Doyle Dane Bernbach TV ad for Volkswagen, 1963
"At 60 miles per hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock."—Ogilvy & Mather print ad for Rolls-Royce, 1957
For 20 years, I have had a love-hate relationship with advertising. It was on October 2, 1982, that I took the editorial helm of the English magazine Hi-Fi News & Record Review. Since then I have both cursed advertising for interrupting the articles, columns, and reviews I want to publish, and praised advertising for helping provide…
The occasion was the 1999 Consumer Electronics Show, and I had sought out the Sony suite at Bally's—the word in the Las Vegas bars where audio journalists hung out was that Sony was demonstrating the production version of their SCD-1 Super Audio CD player. I was glad I'd made the trek along the Strip: As I reported in the May 1999 Stereophile, the sound of a DMP recording—of unaccompanied choral music recorded and mixed in DSD by Tom Jung—was breathtaking, I felt, with an exquisite sense of space. It was definitely the best sound at the CES.
The playback system consisted of two new Sony…
The pyramidal cabinet, constructed from 1" MDF and beautifully finished in gloss-black lacquer, is equally complex. Extensive use is made of damping and bracing to minimize panel resonances, and the 1.6" front baffle is constrained-layer-damped; ie, it is made of a sandwich of two MDF panels with a layer of high-loss thermoplastic damping material between them, and has profiled edges to optimize high-frequency dispersion. The midrange units have their own internal chamber, and the twin flared ports that load the woofers are dimensioned and placed so that the natural pipe resonances are more…
Aiding the Sony speaker's clarity was a superbly clean-sounding treble register. While the SS-M9ED was in no way reticent in the highs, those highs seemed completely free from the grain that would otherwise have me reaching for the volume control. Since I heard Hammond B-3 organist Jimmy Smith live at the Blue Note last February, his Dot Com Blues CD (Verve 314 549 978-2, Stereophile's "Recording of the Month" for April 2001) has been spending a lot of time in the Levinson transport. Like many recordings these days, its recorded balance is a little hot in the treble, yet Smith's stereo-miked…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
Description: Four-way, reflex-loaded, floorstanding loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1" (25.4mm) ceramic/carbon-dome supertweeter, 1" (25.4mm) soft-dome tweeter, 5" (127mm) plastic-cone midrange unit, two 8" (203mm) plastic-cone woofers. Crossover frequencies: 200Hz, 2kHz, 22kHz. Frequency range: 29Hz-100kHz. Frequency response: 26Hz-25kHz, ±1.5dB. Sensitivity: 86dB/2.83V/m. Nominal impedance: 4 ohms (2 ohms minimum). Amplifier requirements: 50-400W.
Dimensions: 44.25" (1125mm) H by 15.75" (400mm) W by 21" (555mm) D. Weight: 127.6 lbs (58kg) each.
Serial numbers…
Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment
Digital sources: Mark Levinson No.31.5 CD transport and No.30.6 D/A processor connected with Illuminations Orchid AES/EBU datalink; Sony SCD-777ES SACD player, Accuphase DP100/DC101 SACD transport and processor; Technics DVD-A10 DVD-Audio player; Dell 866MHz Pentium III computer fitted with Digital Audio Labs CardDeluxe and RME Digi96/8 Pro soundcards connected to dCS 972 upsampler via 75 ohm S/PDIF and Canare 110 ohm AES/EBU datalinks, running Windows Me, WinAmp 2.5, Acid 2.0, and CoolEdit 2000; Apple Macintosh 8100 80MHz fitted with two Sonic Solutions…
Sidebar 3: Measurements
The big Sony's impedance (fig.1) stays within 4 and 6 ohms in the bass, most of the midrange, and the mid-treble. There is a large impedance peak in the upper midrange, due to the crossover between the midrange driver and the main tweeter, but the impedance drops above 8kHz, reaching a minimum value of 1.75 ohms at 22kHz. Fortunately, the electrical phase angle is low at this frequency, but there are a couple of regions where quite a high capacitive phase angle is coupled with a generally low magnitude. Around 10kHz, for example, you have 3.7 ohms coupled with…