With the move to computer and hard drive based digital sources, one would think a format tied to a physical medium would be odd in 2013. But SACD has proved to be remarkably resilient among audiophiles, with a torrent of new titles appearing from such boutique labels and Analogue Productions, Mobile Fidelity, Blue Note, and many more. These are not obscure releases, but many well-known and loved classics in rock, classical, and jazz. There are also many newly recorded SACD releases available, mostly in the classical genre. There is no doubt the format is doing just fine, from this reviewer’s perspective.High-end manufacturers also seem to think so. At the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show, an impressive number of new SACD players were introduced; many equipped with digital inputs as well. The inherent quality of true Direct Stream Digital (DSD) digital has ...

Last month I reviewed a terrific preamp from a small company, and I mentioned that great products can come from small artisans that build per order. I also mentioned that large, multinational companies can also produce great products, with the power of economies of scale and resources that are very difficult to compete with. Marantz is clearly one of those companies. I have yet to evaluate a recent Marantz product that was not built beautifully, and did not offer excellent value. Everything I have heard off their assembly line offered true high-end sound. The most recent review I did was of the $599 PM6004 Integrated Amplifier.Up for review here is a product I frankly did not except to review, the Marantz SA-152SB Limited Edition SACD player. SACD is a medium whose health is either in great decline, or going strong ...

Audiophiles, gather round and take out your wallets.  The premium sound gurus from McIntosh have announced the MCD1100 SACD Disc Player, which is engineered to deliver extended functionality and maximum musical fidelity from CD, CD-R, CD-RW, SCACD, Hybrid SACD, MP3, and WMA stereo music discs.  And, it doesn't require a separate preamplifier to deliver warm, rich and emotionally engaging sound from today's many digital music sources.  The MCD1100 can be added to any existing system or used as a standalone component with a set of high quality headphonesThis is what McIntosh President Charlie Randall had to say about the MCD1100: "In creating McIntosh source components, our designers and engineers have always strived to deliver all the emotional content in recorded music. For the first time, we now offer superlative McIntosh performance for not only a compact disc library, but any ...

Marantz has been in the home electronics game for over 50 years now. I won't go into their long and storied history, but it has covered a lot of territory.  From its beginnings as Saul Marantz’s vision of high quality home entertainment products to the large Japanese conglomerate it is today, Marantz has certainly had its ups and downs.  While it’s simple enough to do a Google search on their various owners, today it is owned by D&M Holdings; the same folks who own McIntosh Labs.  They have been on a mission to preserve the Marantz legacy and their current crop of products in their Reference line is proof of an excellent job. Marantz has had many famous, illustrious engineers and designers under their roof, and to this day, they offer cutting edge products well reviewed by the high-end audio ...

Being in business – any business - for 30 years is reason enough to celebrate, but when you've enjoyed a long-running position at the top of your field there's even more cause for rejoicing. That's the story behind Marantz's SA-KI Pearl components, a limited-edition run (500 worldwide) of “gifts” from Ken Ishiwata to those in the audio community who have enjoyed his innovative designs during his Marantz tenure. Ishiwata drew on his vast experience to design what can be described truly as a custom SACD/CD player. The SA-KI Pearl SACD/CD Player (“KI” stands for Ken Ishiwata) in many ways is a summation of Ishiwata's artistic philosophy and his goal to offer a component “to reproduce music exactly as the original artist and the recording engineers intended.” Ishiwata is reported to have personally listened to and/or tested each internal part. Considering ...