Specifications

CDs, SA-CDs and beyond
However, the SA-10 goes so much further than just disc playback: it’s also a fully-functional digital-to-analogue converter for music stored on a home
computer, as well as having conventional digital inputs for existing source components. Those conventional inputs – optical and coaxial – can handle files
at up to 192kHz/24bit, but in addition the player’s digital input section includes a USB-B asynchronous input for the direct connection of a computer, and
this is compatible with PCM and DXD music files at up to 384kHz/32bit, as well as DSD64, DSD128 and DSD256.
That means the SA-10 is not only equipped to handle all the commonly-available high-resolution audio formats now sold by online retailers, but also
the ultra-high-resolution files becoming available from a number of specialist labels and outlets. In other words, the player is entirely futureproof.
What’s more, the digital input section is completely isolated, to avoid any electrical noise from connected components – a particular problem when
computers are used as a source – from finding its way into the signal-path.
More than just a DAC
CD players (and indeed amplifiers) with built-in DACs usable for computer audio are nothing new, and neither is DSD capability on such devices. Indeed,
the Marantz range already has several CD/SA-CD models so equipped. However, the SA-10 takes things further – just as it features an all-new disc
transport mechanism, so the digital to analogue conversion has also been subject to a radical rethink, taking full advantage of the 1-bit conversion
technology found in past flagship Marantz players, and incorporating brand-new filtering and upconversion to take advantage of this simple, but elegant
solution.
The DSD advantage
Marantz has long been an advocate of the benefits of the DSD format, originally developed to enable Super Audio CD, and was one of the first
manufacturers of SA-CD players, its first ‘statement’ player, the SA-1, being launched in 2001. In more recent times, it has demonstrated both analogue
and CD content converted and upsampled to DSD: played via a DSD-compatible DAC, this delivers an audibly superior output.
The way this is done is nothing new: in fact, the famous Bitstream conversion technology developed relatively early in CD’s history, in which digital data
is handled as individual bits – rather than the chunks of data on which conventional DACs work – is ideal for this task. Of late, Bitstream converters have
fallen out of favour, but one of the very best of their kind was the TD1547, otherwise known as the DAC 7, used in Marantz players of the past.
Known for its musical sound and even tonal balance, the DAC 7 was a 1-bit DAC, just as DSD is a 1-bit format: rather than the combination of, say 24-bit
resolution at a 192kHz sampling rate, as used in many hi-res files, DSD uses 1-bit, but at a much higher sampling rate. So DSD64, as used for SA-CD
discs, is 1-bit at 2.8224MHz, and DSD256, or Quad-DSD, is 11.2MHz/1-bit. This means music stored in DSD is a much more literal representation of the
original analogue waveform of the sound recorded, and thus needs much less processing to turn it into audio able to be passed to an amplifier. Or, as the
company puts it, ‘DSD is analogue’.
SUPER AUDIO CD PLAYER
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1 Copper-plated shielding for digital
audio board
2 Dual Crystal Clock
3 Complete Isolation System Duo
(digital audio board)
4 Complete Isolation System Duo
(analogue audio board)
5 Analogue audio board with HDAM
6 Fully Balanced Differential Audio Circuit
7 Toroidal Transformer with copper-plated
shielding
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