Breakin of Marantz SA8260 SACD player

Good Morning All,

I bought my 8260 last month. I had many different players over the years, Quad CD-P (very nice), Audio Refinement, Sony 20ES, McIntosh MVP-841.

I bought the 8260 so I could listen to the SACD's I am collecting. So far the 8260 sounds much more refined, detailed and analog like with the 'redbook' CD's I played on the other machines. On 2 CD's I was very familiar with I heard new things my Quad did not reproduce.

It's SACD performance is superb. Listening to the old Mercury Living Presence and Living Stereo reissues is phenomenal.

Mine smoothed out with about 1 weeks continual use. I never turn mine off, so it is powered up all the time. What really suprised me was the high quality headphone amplifier. I plug in at night with my GRADO's and get wonderful sound.

Great Machine for the money. The concern of slow loading and reading does not bother me at all, in fact I really don't notice it.

Happy Listening,
hififile

Hififile,
This is good news. I posted on audioasylum about the SA8260's capability to drive headphones. Which Grados are you using? I am thinking of Sennheiser 555.

Ejresch, my friend, I did not mean to upset anybody I was just answering a question. My friend had this player for a while and I had it in my system and listened to it enough in both his and my system to fairly judge it. Like I said, it is a decent player for $1000 new, but what I was trying to say, and if I didn't make it clear here I appologize, is that on the used market $1000 will get you a better digital front end. For example a used Sony S7700(from $150 to $200) with used Bel Canto DAC2(anywhere from $700 to $800) beats the SA8260 even when the latter has an SACD of the same recording playing. Example #2 is Audio Mirror dac(new about $500) with the same Sony S7700 as a transport also bests the SA8260. I am very familiar with the sound of the system I heard it in to come to this conclusion and we did compare the Bel Canto DAC2 directly to this player in the same system running with the same interconnects connected to a different pre-amp input with SA8260 being utilized as a transport. SA8260 is pretty good for $1000 but you can definately do better if you invest the $1000 to get a good used digital playback system. I am not trying to express that the SA8260 is a POS. In no way it is, and for $1000 new, I have not heard a brand new player in this price range that will easily beat the SA8260 when it comes to overall sound, top to bottom, soundstage, imaging included, although I have not heard every single CD player in this price range, so take this with a grain of salt. Another issue with the SA8260, and this is what stopped me from buying it initially, is that it has problems reading some CDs. It is very finicky when it comes to playing less than perfect discs. I observed it on more than 1 of these players. Anyway, you like it and that's what matters the most. Everyone has different taste when it comes to the sound of their systems, so what I like may not be exactly what you like. Besides, it is entirely possible that the same component may have different sound characteristics in different systems. By the way, before you purchased the SA8260, what did you compare it to?

Audphile1 - Thanks. That was what I was looking for. Your initial response did not upset me in any way whatsoever. Maybe since I asked so many questions right in a row, it may have sounded like I was upset. Not the case at all. I actually owned a Denon 1650, demoed a Music Hall CD25 and a friend of mine had a Planet 2000, so I did some comparisons after I purchased the Marantz. I had heard the Marantz DV 8400 before in a different system, so I took a leap of faith that the 8260 would be at least as good, given that it is audio only and shared some critical parts and design. I also tried a few DVD players as transports, a Pioneer PD-65 as a spinner, as well as a DIP Upsampler, MSB Link III with P1000 power supply, and a Monarchy 20 Bit D/A (can't remember the model). I preferred the sound of the Marantz to all the other one-box players. The sound of the player D/A combos was very good, but not quite as smooth from top to bottom as the Marantz. The difference in sound between the 8260 and the one-box players was enough to make a choice easy. The difference between the 8260 and the D/A combos was subtle (except for the MSB, which I thought was grainy in the treble, but had excellent bass). Given the price and sound of the Marantz verses the extra rack space, cost of extra cables, etc., I decided on the Marantz. I have heard good things about the Bel Canto, and the S7700 has a reputation as a very good transport. I agree that the Marantz likes discs that are clean and scratch-free. One last question. What specifically did you prefer in the sound of the Bel Canto and Audio Mirror over the Marantz, and what speakers/amp/pre were you using? --ok that was technically two questions disguised as one. Cheers!

Ejresch, I just wanted to mention this upfront - this is not a review of any of these components. Just my observation and my opinion on how these components performed in my own system. Will they sound the same in any other system? I have no idea. But, to briefly describe the differences, in my system, between S7700/Bel Canto or S7700/Audio Mirror combos vs the SA8260, I can say that the separates have fuller sound, smoother highs and deeper, tighter bass. Voices sound fuller. Better imaging, better stage. These differences are not night and day, but still are noticable enough. Of course it also depends on how revealing the rest of the system is. I just think that in the context of a revealing system, SA8260 would most likely sound digital, thin and hyper-detailed.
Audio Mirror D2, for the price, is a very smooth sounding dac. I don't think it has the resolution of the Bel Canto but in certain systems that are on the bright side, I think this dac may just be the ticket. Overall, both the Bel Canto and Audio Mirror sounded, at least to me, smoother than SA8260. The dacs sounded also more involving. However, neither of these digital sources pretend to be state of the art, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. Each of these components is good in its own way. Especially for the price.
If you click on the (System) next to my ID you'll see in what context these components were evaluated.
Again, as I said before, the most important thing is that you like it. That's all that matters. Take care.