Quote Originally Posted by emaidel
Well, the Marantz unit arrived, but none of the SACD's I ordered from Telarc did, so all I've been able to do is listen to the unit as a CD player. Still, that's nothing to complain about, as this piece is one really terrific sounding CD player, and it's only got about 3 1/2 hours use on it so far!

As I said I would, I placed the Shaw version of Brahms's "A German Requiem" in the player, and punched in track 2. When the strings began, which I already thought sounded somewhat etheral, they now sounded downright heavenly. And, I could all but count how many players there were in each of the string sections too! Then, when the chorus began softly, the soundstage opened up and was nothing short of stunning. The Dahlquist DQ-10's did their "magic trick," and "disappeared," leaving only the music to listen to spread across the space between, and behind the speakers as I've never heard them sound before. There was no doubt about it: the Marantz SA-8001 is one helluva fine sounding CD player, and might give many who don't care for the sound of CD's a good reason to take another listen, and see if they still feel that way.

Everything I've played on the unit so far has sounded much, much better than I've ever heard it before, but lousy sounding CD's still sound lousy. All that says is that if the source isn't that good, there's not much you can do with it.

On the other hand, if the source is well recorded (as most, but not all, Telarc recordings are) the results are splendid. It might be my imagination, but after listening to the player for a few hours, it seemed to be a bit more full-bodied, with a lushness I wasn't aware of listening to at first. We'll see if this continues to be an observation.

Hopefully, tomorrow, the SACD's will arrive. The SA-8001 has a mode switch to enable me to easily compare the normal CD layer with the SACD layer, so it shouldn't be too difficult to make an A/B comparison between the two.

The Brahm's CD was a troublesome disc that sometimes played in my Adcom changer, and sometimes didn't. It played flawlessly in the SA-8001. A 1984 Decca disc of Tchaikovsky's 1st and 3rd Piano concertos was a different story: no player I've ever owned has been able to play the last 2 minutes of the 3rd without either skipping, or emitting loud clicks, and the Marantz SA-8001 flunked while trying to play this disc too. While I never heard the disc sound so lush, and full, without the screechiness it emitted on earlier players I've owned, it still won't play properly to the end. I don't know if it's still in print, but I guess, after having owned it since 1984, you'd think I would have replaced it by now, and it's certainly time for me to do so!

Stay tuned for the next chapter. Hopefully, the sound of SACD's will impress me even more than this player has so far. In short, I'm simply delighted!
I'm glad that you're happy with the Marantz.... thanx for the initial review.... It will be good to hear your follow up review of SACD vs CD....