MARANTZ SA-1 

Product Code: RAM_EX_SA1 Price: Check Latest The Marantz SA-1 is a first generation SACD/CD player intended to be the flagship of the line as well as the answer to Sony's classical SCD-1. It has been around for nearly 5 years and has already been the target of modifications. Audiocom in the UK was probably the first to really hotrod this player by executing improvements to jitter performance and power supply resulting in a much improved performance. Retailing for over $7000 USD great sound is expected but the intriguing question was always, how much further could after market modifications take it? Fortunately, a curious gentleman was interested in taking the SA-1 to new limits and was willing to guinea pig his player for our R&D. By the way, we appreciate his patience throughout the process…Thanks. Searching for increased performance is the area of our business I enjoy the most! "Tweaking" we call it, and I love it! Nothing like popping the hood of an already high end player looking to turn it into something truly spectacular. What can one expect form a stock SA-1? "Musical" comes to mind. The stock sound is pleasantly smooth. Music was round as if we added a very euphonic SET amplifier to our system. Some may approve whole heartily but we were simply disappointed. I believe that resolution is the key to musical involvement and euphonism is just a distorted coloration there to mask the sound of possibly associated inferior products to make things nice and listenable. If I were to rate the player in terms of overall performance with 100 being the best we have had in our system I would give it a 65. Sorry…but this player was to my ears a wet rag lacking in any resolution and dynamics while the pace and timing were not exemplary. So what to do? I have learned and experienced for quite some time now that the output stage is generally responsible for killing resolution and squashing dynamics. I must give credit to my friend Ric Schultz of Electronic Visionary System who has always preached this to me and which I now always focus on because he is absolutely correct here. Removing as much of the filtering and gain stage as possible really allows the music to flow through and what you hear is greatly improved detail, extension, slam, and micro dynamics. Music becomes incredibly palpable and present. The SA-1 has so much output stage or what they call the HDAM's that it is no wonder that it lacks any sort of resolution. After a bit of R&D we decided to remove the entire top PCB containing the HDAM's and the 4 TDA1547's. We actually kept just 2 dac chips and literally cut the PCB to ~ 3" X 3". The 2 TDA1547's are now buffered and sent directly to 2 Audio Consulting silver coupling transformers. The digital interface was re-routed to use only one dac chip per channel rather then 4 thus creating a much purer and direct signal path. The results were incredible!! Resolution, resolution, and more resolution!! This was a phenomenal step of the mod because now we could here the potential of this beast. Let's move to the next stage. The clock circuit was the next area of improvement and it goes without saying we replaced the stock part with the superb Superclock 2(33.38688 MHz). Lowering the jitter has such a profound effect on sound because the hard edged fundamentals now take on a clear and distinct characteristic. Music locks into focus and spatial cues are more prominent and easier to hear. Also, sound takes another step forward in dynamics bringing more energy to the room like live music. No need for more praise as we feel the Superclock 2 is quite proven with any player at any price. It is now routine to improve power supply capacitors, internal wiring, and adding Bybee filters. All of these stages of modifications simply deliver much more lifelike qualities. Uniquely, we only use the Bybee filters in the signal path where we hear much greater inner resolution and clarity with no drawbacks in dynamics or pace. A rare case of more is actually better!! The Bybees are superb! Something new for the Marantz was a full C37 lacquer treatment to all the IC's. This produces a stunning improvement! It seems to add a natural more vivid presentation with improvements to resolution too. Why? I really do not know entirely but Mr. Dieter Ennemoser in a way claims it has certain properties our ears and brains relate to thus we hear better sound. Whatever it is I am a believer… Hearing really is believing. So, that's essentially the modification and from the picture below you can see it is a completely different player now. Completely different looking and absolutely better sounding. I would confidently rate the modded Marantz at a stunning 105 because it is the finest sounding mod we have accomplished to date. Take your Marantz and mod it…you will be shocked at the improvement!!! Installation Please contact Reference Audio Mods by e-mail at sales@referenceaudiomods.com or by phone at (909)353-8948 for installation. Price The 2,500 USD price includes parts and labor. It does not include shipping (to/from) cost or player cost. Customer Reviews Send us a review and share your thoughts with other customers