A Simply Stunning SACD Player

In a word, the Marantz SA-KI Ruby is fabulous. I ordered a "scratch and dent" model, but it had no dents and I could not see any scratches. As far as I could tell, it was just "open box." Thank you, Crutchfield, for the gorgeous SACD player! My previous SACD player, a Sony SCL-777ES from 2001, had problems with the laser mechanism. The SCL-777ES was good in its day, but frankly, the Ruby is in a different league. My impressions of the Ruby: it has an extraordinarily large sound stage, which extends well beyond the speakers on each side. The sound has amazing detail. The reverberations of cymbals and bells must be heard to be believed. The ability of the Ruby to distinguish between instruments in loud passages is remarkable -- and wildly exciting. The Ruby upsamples CDs to DSD before converting the digital sound to analog. My jaw dropped the first time I played a CD. It was almost as good as SACD. But don't take my word for how good the Ruby is. Read Paul Seydor's review on the Internet. Seydor raves about the Ruby. I did not test the Ruby's DAC, but Seydor thought it was fantastic. One irritation: if you program tracks, the Ruby inserts a slight pause between them, including between consecutive tracks. For example, if you program the four tracks of Nielsen's Symphony No. 4, which does not have any pauses between movements, you get slight pauses. Of course, there are no pauses if you play the tracks without pro

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Great Sacd player and Dac

I never heard such wonderful dynamics, tone quality and overall beauty of what you are hearing. This player draws you in and allows you to just enjoy each moment of the music. Well worth the money, thank you Robert Harley.

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Great CD/SACD player

Quite pricey player, but what fantastic sound. My old Proceed DAC doesn't hold a candle to it! Very impressed with the sound and deep of stage delivered. only drawbacks are the black color w/ small buttons not highlited with white symbols, and small display screen that can't be read from more then 5 ft away.

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PERFECT replacement of my 20 year old Sony XA777ES

After 20 years, the laser on my Sony XA777ES went. I bought it back then because it was rated A+ in stereo magazines (a new rating above A that they came up with just for that model at that time). Sony has NO parts for that model saying it was too old and didn't even let me pay them to fix it. I have equipment like Cary, McCormack, ClearAudio, Benz, Graham, Audible Illusions and Acoustic Zen (speakers) who ALL have parts and service for my equipment that is OLDER than the Sony. I also have a 20 year old Marantz receiver for a mid-fi system and Marantz customer service is AWESOME! So, I was in the market for an SACD player in the 3 to 4 thousand dollar range. I was always impressed with the Marantz Reference series so I took a look. There are two models. This model, the SA-K1 Ruby and the Marantz SQA-10 for 7 grand. The main parts of the Ruby are the same as the SA-10. I do not need the extra features of the SA-10 and after TONS of research, I decided to stay in this price range. As far as specs, and CUSTOMER SERVICE, the others in this range don't even come close. The Warranty on Marantz REFERENCE series gear is 5 years. Most other brands are one or two years. The unit is built like a tank but the SOUND, of course, is of utmost importance,. The sound is NEUTRAL, exactly how it is supposed to be. Not adding or taking anything away from the original recording, I have a VAST SACD collection.

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Speed & Slam

I found this .player to be neutral in tone instead of warm as most people report on Marantz CD players. It also has extended highs. It appeared to have speed and slam. Build quality is very good.

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