Source: Press Release, Last Accessed: 2016/12/05

The Premium 10 series, comprising the SA-10 SACD/CD player/DAC and PM-10 amplifier, features groundbreaking Marantz audio technology designed to deliver the best possible sound from high-resolution audio formats and CD alike. Taking its place at the pinnacle of the range, the new duo is so advanced in both technology and performance that Marantz describes it simply as The New Reference.
The SA-10 replaces the SA-7, the previous Marantz Reference disc player and, according to the press release, it is the first player/USB-DAC that doesn’t actually have a DAC. The reason is Marantz Musical Mastering, a brand-new approach to a problem almost 35 years old. A two-stage process, MMM-Conversion and MMM-Stream, draws on Marantz expertise extending back to the first days of CD, and brings into play the company’s commitment and experience in both SACD and the DSD format behind it. To play SACD, CD, DVD-R/RW and CD-R/RW discs, the Marantz team built a new transport mechanism from scratch, the new SACD-M3, which can also play high-resolution audio stored on either CD or DVD recordable media.
The digital-to-analog conversion process, available to both discs and external sources connected to the player’s digital inputs (which include asynchronous USB for the connection of a computer) upconverts everything to DSD256, in a process known as Marantz Musical Mastering – Conversion. Two dedicated master clocks are used to ensure all digital signals are upsampled directly to DSD256 – or four times the SACD standard – without any need for sample rate conversion. And there’s a choice of two filter settings to allow the listener to shape the sound. The output from the MMM-Conversion process is, in effect, already an analog signal, being a very high-frequency stream of single pulses. With all the hard digital work done, this stream needs nothing more than a very high-quality low-pass filter to deliver the purest possible analog audio output, the company says.
Partnering the SA-10 is the PM-10, the best integrated amplifier Marantz has ever produced, featuring a purist all-analog design, a completely balanced architecture throughout its signal path, and a dual-mono construction with differential amplification. Effectively a preamplifier and a pair of monoblock power amps in a single unit, the PM-10 uses switching power amplification to deliver 200Wpc into 8ohms, and 400Wpc into 4ohms. Additionally, the PM-10 has a meticulously designed all-discrete phono stage for both moving coil and moving magnet cartridges.
The preamp uses the famous Marantz Hyper-Dynamic Amplifier Modules (or HDAMs). These are tiny amplifier modules, built from discrete components for the best possible sound quality, rather than using integrated circuit operational amplifiers. PM-10 features two sets of balanced inputs, and, also, conventional unbalanced line-level inputs, the signal from these inputs being converted to balanced before being passed through the amplifier.
To make the most of that purity of design, the PM-10 is designed with the option of working in ‘"Purest Mode": when engaged, this deactivates any superfluous circuits, giving the signal the cleanest possible path through the amplifier. There’s also a Power Amp Direct input, taking the signal straight from the input section to the power stage to allow the PM-10 to work as a pure power amplifier.

For more information: http://www.marantz.com/

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