Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

My Marantz SA-10 arrived today
Built in March 2018 in Japan.
Playing Bartok String Quartets as the first CD played.
A little strident to start.
Now halfway through first CD and getting better.
breaking in...

I just wanted to compliment the folks posting on this thread. No big squabbles, no endless posting the same theoretical complaints. (like seen in wire threads)Anyway, I am still very happy with my Marantz SA-10. All my use of it is as a DAC using a Toslink to my cheap $40 average cost five disc changers. Someone ask WTF why I use it that way? MY best response is think of the Marantz as a Ferrari. I can keep it in the garage all the time (at least the transport, and even the front lights can stay off while use as a DAC) and use my cheap old Ford for daily driver. But! I get to use 95% of the Ferrari goodness in the Ford!, every day. saving the Ferrari itself for those special days.I really like being able to load a machine and let it play five hours straight. More than replacing each disc every time.

I use really special footers.

Got mine at American Science and Surplus.
Size 10 butyl rubber bottle stoppers.
I must own a hundred of the suckers.
I use them under just about all my audio equipment.
They cost $1.25 each.

Quality of a recording vs the digital decoding..
I recently had the pleasure of auditioning a Marantz SA-10 ($7000)
Which uses a version of DSD to decode everything. Turning the other formats into DSD then into music.
One of my complaints about SACD is they all seem to have no ’room’ played in. The music all seems to ’magically’ float out of a black hole.
Stripped of any ambience. Which I find really annoying. (so I don’t own very many SACD, but have owned a Sony SCD777ES since new)
The interesting thing using the Marantz SA-10 to play CDs from another machine (via Toslink) is the results still have all the room.
So the loss of space in SACD (IMO) has to be in the creation of the disc. and not the decoding!

And that music from the SA-10 sounds better (particularly the treble) than any other digital I have heard.(I do have to say it is subtle, and not some magical WOW. But enough to blow $7K to buy one for myself, since no other digital device has managed to do this before for my ears)
The Sony SCD777ES was my reference player. Soon as I get the Marantz I ordered, the Sony will be relegated to the dust bin of old stuff I used to use.

One of the interesting things about the Marantz playing CDs.. With it each CD really has it's own sound. Used to be CDs sort of all somehow sounded the same. With the Marantz they all sound different! And some are like 'Super CDs' with way more info in them, and some others are just like they were played by my old DAC. With most having something extra..
I never noted that before I heard the differences.. Now I am surprised I never noticed it.

MY trying out the Marantz gave me the impression that the black dead background is more a feature of the recording than the DSD itself.
So I can see how some SACD could be better and not have this odd feature.
My (pure wild guessing) notion of what happened with the black void on the SACDs I have heard is very low level info being stripped away by the technician/producer making the master. Thinking it is hiss or ?? they strip off the very low level ’noise’ to make it sound ’pure’ not realizing that it also has information about the room etc.
I know a few people who LOVE the sound. So it may have been what the folks doing the mastering thought was ’better’.?

Not to steal or break the thread.. but MQA is a wholesale attempt to lock in all recording to a patented standard of dubious value by a small company looking to cash in. The notion that it is a ’wonderful improvement’ is all marketing hype. Yeah it might do something, but that something comes at a big price. Both in cost monopoly of control, and in digital rights management.
If you love the idea of one company holding your music hostage and which can make you jump through hoops from now until crack of doom for a trivial or non-existent benefit.. Then yeah go for MQA.
If you shudder at some doofus controlling music distribution from now on. Well you get my drift.

I just bought a new Marantz SA-10. It does not have MQA but had a sound good as anything ever made. I think MQA is a flash in the collective pan which I can only hope dies a lonely death. Regardless of the hype and noise being generated of late.

Pardon my excursion onto other matters than this thread..

I have to disagree about DSD converting PCM!
The player I just auditioned at home for five days, a Marantz SA-10 converts all PCM to DSD and then uses DSD to make the music unfold.
The Marantz uses a unique arrangement of DSD hardware.
And I have to say the music produced from CDs by the Marantz SA-10 is marvelous.
Even when imported via Toslink from a five disc CD player.
So much so I am buying one ($7000) and have it on order.

No way would I do this if the CDs sounded like SACDs usually do!!!
I own maybe five SACD. and 2500 CDs... I plan on using the SA-10 mainly to play CDs from a separate changer. LOL

As I previously mentioned I think SACD sound strange. And the fact is the CDs played back by the SA-10 sound like CDs, just more detail and a lot better treble

Everyone who reads these threads is generally 'grown up'. That is they think, and can decide for themselves what they are interested in, and I bet we can all agree no one reading this stuff is so mesmerized and gullible that we have to collectively worry about the need to 'save' them.

SO if some guy (and his buddies) spends hours reposting the same drivel praising his particular stuff I think everyone can see through the smoke and realize what it is all about.

I have faith in the average audiophile.

And to mention.. I LOL at a posted comment about Marantz being 'dark'. Now no one mentioned Marantz in this thread until I did about the Marantz SA-10. So the sort of attempt to 'diss' Marnatz was a particularly odd thing. And actually made it pretty clear there was a lot of posturing going on, trying to make the thread a child thread for R2R ladder dacs.
The fact it is a couple of guys does not impress.
I remember KAB 'fanboys, a flock of them always praising KAB and Technics anytime a post about 'What turntable' came along. Same thing. Obvious.

No one cares.
No one is that gullible.

I am still fully satisfied using my Marantz SA-10 as a Dac.

How many DACs... First DAC separate was an Audio Alchemy. some little thing for a few hundred.
Later I bought new a Adcom DA600 when it came out. And a used Adcom DA700 later on for $250. I kept that DA700 for many years. (and it and the DA600 still in my closet) Tried a $2300 raved on TAS and Stereophile DAC. no better in any way and returned it. Only finally this Summer 2018 I tried a Marantz SA-10 as a DAC to play CDs, and yeah, it is a lot better. So I bought it. Most certainly my last DAC.