Dave’s Faves – Marantz SACD-30n

Marantz SACD-30n $3000

While every format has its strengths and weaknesses, I still have to have a silver disc player.

Ideally, that silver disc player would play SACDs as well as Red Book CDs. There is plenty of music on disc that I need, that I can’t get any other way.

Marantz introduced a stunningly amazing player during Covid 19 ravaged 2020 that might have slipped under your radar.

For those of us who are ALL IN on disc players, SACD-30n is a welcome home run. It is the best player SACD player south of $12K, Marantz’s new SACD10. For those of you who have had less than a strong affiliation with silver discs lately, you need to reconsider the topic.

When hi-res downloads appeared, the audiophile community saluted en mass. That’s great. I was all in. But what I didn’t understand is why we, the audiophile community, did not salute the introduction of SACD in 1999. 24b is 24b. SACDs are GREAT! I realize not many people will start an SACD collection today, since you can stream 24b- all but free. Yet there are those of us who have a hundred or more SACDs and have enjoyed 24b for twenty years.

Marantz raised the bar in about 2014 when it introduced the state of the art SA-10 disc player for $7500. SA-10 was the first player to eschew a DAC chip in its D to A conversion process. Designer Ken Ishiwata, Marantz’s iconic engineer, created D to A conversion WITHOUT a DAC chip.

His design, dubbed MMM (Marantz Music Mastering) took digital and threw it out DSD 11.2M analog from the SA-10. No longer… did we have to live with the sonic signature of a DAC chip. Of course, this came at a price, $7500.

After SA-10 ruled the world for a few years, Ken introduced the SA-Ruby, $4k. It had the same MMM technology as SA-10. It was an outstanding player but did not support balanced outs. While SA-Ruby was successful, it was a bit too close in price to SA-10. If you can swing $4k, you might be able to go all the way to $7500 to buy the best. We actually sold a lot more SA-10s than Rubys.

With the introduction of SACD-30n, Marantz has made slight improvements over the SA-Ruby and dropped a grand off the price.

As the letters imply, this guy starts as a CD/SACD player. Marantz has created its own drive mechanism to play discs. This doesn’t use an off the shelf transport from China.com. Most companies use a noisy drive mechanism intended to play DVDs or Blu-rays. Marantz makes its own transport for CD and SACD specifically, in its top factory in Japan.

This brings me to an interesting story. Mike retired a couple years back and was updating his music system with us. He said that within this system he wanted to buy his last CD player. I showed him SACD-30n. He said, “Thanks, but I want to shop some more.” I get it. It’s fun to look around. I’m not a car salesman trying CLOSE customers today. Two weeks later Mike walked in with his head down and a bag of CDs. He said he had gone to Chicago and some dealer talked him into buying a Naim for over $5000. “I figured because it was over $5k, it would be better than the Marantz (which is $3k).” The reason Mike was back is, his more expensive Naim COULDN’T TRACK a pile of his beloved opera CDs. Keep in mind, Marantz MAKES its own transport. It doesn’t buy a transport (or DAC) from a vendor! We went through about 20 of Mike’s CDs. The Marantz read, and played them ALL with no problem. Mike just proved why Marantz is the way to go. Even very expensive brand names out there, BUY their transports from a vendor. Those transports are often very pedestrian. Some of these guys, like CH Precision for $46k, will brag up that they “modify” this or that transport- that they’ve bought from a vendor. Marantz doesn’t do that. Marantz makes its own transport, like a brick outhouse! It tracks like a champ. Please don’t hold it against Marantz that SACD-30n is priced so reasonably. To finish this story, Mike bought SACD-30n, and returned his other one. He called to thank me after he got the Marantz home- because it sailed through all of his discs, including SACDs as well.

OK. Let’s address MUSICALLY why the MMM is a big stinkin’ deal- because it is!

If you look at the best competing machines out there, they run $7-50k. Yes, $50k. These are fine sounding machines from McIntosh, Linn, Gryphon, CH and a few others. They run a quad array of Sabre chips, which is fine. They sound clean, detailed and are a pleasure to listen to. They sound very much like Marantz’s iconic SA-11Mk3, a $4k machine that was our top dog for several years.

But SACD-30n is better and less money. The MMM technology provides a more transparent, IMMEDIATE sound. The air, space and lack of veil in the road with MMM is clearly noticeable. The transport of SACD-30n is a better tracker. Absolutely/positively.

I had a customer bring in an expensive outboard DAC ($15k) to compare. We ran SACD-30n analog out, into a Hegel integrated. We ran SACD-30n digital out into the Hegel. We ran SACD-30n into his DAC, which ran analog out into the Hegel. This gave us three DACs to compare, all quickly with the flip of a switch.

SACD-30n revealed the lightest, sweetest, most detailed sound, with the best ambiance of the trio. It had the floating CHARISMA most vinyl lovers brag up- without the artifacts. The $15k DAC and Hegel were so similar that I really couldn’t tell them apart. They were solid and clean- but not as spacious and three dimensional as SACD-30n. The color and overtones on violin and great female singers won the comparison for SACD-30n. It didn’t take long to discern and appreciate the difference.

SACD-30n has digital inputs of Coax, OPT and USB, so other sources can take advantage of Marantz’s MMM technology as well.

Marantz has paid SERIOUS attention to this piece. I’ve just told you about MMM and Marantz’s own sled. When you are not using the disc mechanism it literally is SHUT OFF. It will not create noise/haze for the streaming function of this piece. Nobody else does this.

Here’s another feature that makes SACD-30N a Swiss army knife. It has fixed and VARIABLE audio out! Yup, you can use it either as a source component into your preamp. Or, TA-DA, you can run preamp out straight into your power amp. Now we’re talking! Flexible enough for you?

SACD-30n is worth buying as a silver disc player ONLY. The fact that it has a plethora of great features to boot- may help seal the deal. In fact, this guy makes for a magnificent system hub if you’re just streaming and playing discs.