Marantz SA8004 Super Audio CD/CD Player (Black)

• Super Audio CD / CD Player with a front USB(type A) input for music playback with iPod/iPhone digital connection or USB memory
• Rear USB(Type B)/Optical/Coax digital inputs enable D/A converter mode for external music source, Rear inputs support high quality format files USB: up to 96kHz/24bit, Optiacl&Coaxial: up to 192kHz/24bit
• Separate power supply and audio circuit boards, Double-shielded Toroidal power transformer, Discrete Audio circuits with HDAM®-SA2, Audiophile-grade selected components, High performance Cirrus Logic D/A converter CS4398
• Xyron High rigid disc tray, base and precision drive, MP3/WMA playback capability for CD-R and CD-RW discs
• Double layer bottom chassis, Machined chassis-mount analog outputs with zero-impedance copper plate, Copper shielded digital output circuit, Power Standby, Detachable Power Cord, Hand held remote controller

I've been in the "HI FI" industry for 30 years and when my Rega Planet started acting up I replaced it with a Pioneer Elite universal player, which was good, but only lasted 2 years. So when I saw the review in TAS"(The Absolute Sound I kept it in mind, it later won a "Golden Ears" award. This is a great sounding unit. It has the "Slam" of the Pioneer and the Analog sound of the Rega, throw in a USB DAC at this price and how can you lose..... you can't. To say I'm happy with The SA8004 is a under statement. BTW the SA8400 has also won The Absolute Sound 2011 Digital Source of The Year award in the Jan 2012 issue # 219

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I wanted a source that would be the heart of my digital music world, and I was very impressed with this player's predecessor, the SA8003, except that with the older player you could only control your ipod via the player, and as everyone knows, controlling an iAnything with another product is a step backwards in usability.

So I waited for an updated player to be released, and when the SA8004 was announced I first read the online manual to make sure the engineering matched the marketing, then bought this player as soon as it was available.

I've had this CD player for almost a year, and I've been thrilled with it from the start. I connect my iPod, iPhone or iPad to the front USB port, laptop to the rear USB port and desktop to the optical digital in. I typically listen to FLAC files on my computers or Apple Lossless files on my iPod, and I cannot tell a difference at all in the sound from the various inputs. At the very least, the loudness is the same among the inputs. I no longer have to adjust my amp's volume when switching digital inputs on the SA8004.

There are two minor usability issues I have encountered with this player. First, whenever you plug in your Apple device to the front USB port, whatever playlist you were listening to is automatically reset to the first song played. This is annoying for me because playlists are my main way of listening to music, and having a playlist of over 900 randomly played songs reset prematurely means I repeat music more often than I would like. Not a huge problem, and this might be an Apple issue rather than a Marantz issue, but it's there nonetheless.

The other minor annoyance (and this is very minor) is that when you connect the back USB port to a computer, the volume for the player is automatically set to 50%. Again, this might not be a Marantz issue, but it's at least worth mentioning.

That being said, I was surprised at how well the USB connection to a computer works. In the windows world, I don't expect things to just work when you plug them in, but in the case of the SA8004, it did. I didn't have to install anything or even reboot my computer. The speed with which the USB connection is established was also surprising. When I plug in the USB port I'm able to immediately mouse to the volume control and raise it to 100%. It just works, and very quickly.

Other than the two usability issues, this player is flawless. The sound from CDs and SACDs is excellent, this player pulls the digital audio from you Apple device and uses its internal DAC to process the music, the multiple digital inputs make this player very flexible, and the built in headphone out gets you as close to your music as you can reasonably get. It doesn't matter what comes out after this player, the SA8004 will always be good in an absolute sense.

There are many ways to connect your digital music world. Some like to use streaming devices, but those devices are often limited by whatever codecs they happen to support. Some like their CD players to act as mere transports and use an offboard DAC as the core of their system. But why buy a high quality CD player and only use half of it? Instead, why not use the CD player's DAC for other digital sources? That's the idea behind the SA8004, and it forms the heart of a high quality system. The SA8004 takes away the variability of digital sources, and provides a nearly perfect musical experience.

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I purchased Marantz SA8004 as a replacement for Marantz SA8003 since the new model has optical and coaxial inputs and also has a USB input to connect to PC. It also has a headphones output (I use it with Sennheiser HD800, not sure how it works with other headphones). It makes the player almost universal device. I use it in several regimes periodically switching between the modes:

1)As a SACD/CD player. The sound is great (and better than SA8003). The device is absolutely quiet (no any mechanical sound while playing).

2)To play music/DVD movies on a computer. When SA8004 connected to a computer via USB cable, PC installed drivers automatically. By some reason the default settings give no sound when DVD movies are played (using Windows Media Player). However it is can be corrected easily: in the Control Panel->Sound-> SPDIF Interface->Advanced please deselect the "Exclusive Mode" options.

3)As an intermediate device between a (cheap) blu ray player and headphones (blu ray player and SA8004 are connected using an optical cable). My computer monitor accepts HDMI connection to the blu ray player but speakers quality is not very good. The device gives only stereo sound (not multichannel) but is is exactly what is needed for headphones.

4)With a thumb USB drive connected to the front panel. PC always creates a lot of noise while using SA8004 with a USB drive gives much better listening experience.

Finally I sold an expensive headphones amplifier (which was connected to a PC) and use SA8004 as a primary sound device and I am very pleased. Negatives of SA8004 are relatively high price and that it is not universal as a player.

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The audio quality of this unit is clearly better than any other that I have had. It is quiet to the extreme (mechanically). I love listening to it both as an SACD and CD player. It has never failed to play any CD that I have made in .wav or mp3 format. It plays well from the USB ports both front and rear. The audio from a computer when listening to a radio station website seems to be as good as I could expect. The headphone output has its own level control which is a plus. The remote is very well laid out and can be aimed in any, I mean any direction. It instantly starts playing a different track via the remote number buttons. I mean instantly.

The bad news is the display. In largest digits can not be read at any illumination value further away than nine feet. the smaller text not further than three feet. The track numbers get blurred by tiny text objects sitting above the numbers. All the text and numerals are much too small. The largest numbers and letters are six millimeters compared to nine millimeters on my Yamaha receiver and the Yamaha display is much brighter also. The timing digits are very hard to read because the colon looks like a #1. There is NO provision for Album, artist, or song title. I thought my unit was broken, but Marantz confirmed that it was engineered that way. Sorry!

All in all I am glad that I have this SACD player because I like being able to play the SACD layer of my collection. And after all its main purpose is to provide excellent sound and it surely does that. But, for $1000.00 it should have a readable display. I think SACD as a format has run out of gas. The iPod generation rules the market now.

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4.5 Stars!

The DAC in this unit is as good as the reference grade Benchmark DAC1. I have done extensive comparisons between the two with output levels matched and I couldn't tell the difference between the two both on optical/coax. I have tried many other DACs that couldn't touch the Benchmark's performance but this one did. Amazingly resolving and non fatiguing DAC. Benchmark as headphone amp is tiny bit better than the head phone amp on the Marantz. Over all in any case, it is a very very close call between the two. Bottom line is you are getting an excellent SACD/CD player for free for the same price as Benchmark DAC1. Great job Marantz!

The iphone USB performance is pretty good. I read some where that the front USB/IPOD uses its own DAC and not the main DAC based on the Cirrus Logic CS4398. But the performance was very good. YMMV depending on the quality of the source material. With the front ipod connector, you are also getting the itransport feature similar to Wadia 171i Transport.

Ipad wouldn't work with the PC usb port on the back via camera kit. Complains about accessory using too much power. Ipad however works with the usb port on the Peachtree Decco2 sometimes.

I take away 0.5 stars for the slightly slow reading of the TOC of CD/SACD discs. Not too bad but slow compared to the speed king OPPO BDP-83.

I'm yet to see a product that can do some many things so well at such a price. Not chump change but you get a lot for what you pay for it. Highly recommended.