It may seen an odd topic to post on a middles blog but as music and what I have heard it from has been an interest from around the age of nine getting involved across actual childhood in building up stereo systems it's a valid part of age regressed life for me.
I have three main sources of recorded music, records which was what I grew up with, compact discs that after a brief period with pre-recorded cassettes I moved to in the mid 1980's and downloads increasingly lossless and so-called high definition better than cd ones at that.
The last cd player was a 1994 model by Rotel which was a high quality model bought as a stop gap when it's predecessor had a sudden death in April of 2013 but I had been hankering for something better for a while and I spotted this reconditioned and warranted that appealed.
Enter the Marantz SA 7003
It's a compact disc player with a difference: it plays the physical form of high definition recordings known as Super Audio Compact Discs (sacd) of which I had a good number as mine had a layer for regular cd players and the super audio cd layer that I have bought over the years for the excellence of their regular cd layer sound.
The main benefit of such recordings isn't that the highest notes are more extended although they can be, it's that because the use more smaller samples of analogue sound when it reassembles it it is that much more accurate and smoother.
It has a few sockets on the back you need to wire up and being a very quality piece of equipment these are gold plated having the line outputs to couple to your amplifier, digital outputs for either digital recorders or external conversion of its digits to sound and a twin pin IEC ("kettle") socket for the mains lead.
That was fun as one wasn't included and didn't have a spare at hand, so being only familiar with 'figure of eight' and three pin IEC ones I wasn't sure I needed to order a special lead up but as it happens you can use a three pin lead on a device with the IEC socket in two pin form.
One big improvement on many players is the draw that holds the disc is not floppy plastic like some cheap computer dvd drive but is solid and is designed to reduce vibration when it spins the disc. The case is also well made with plenty of metal.
The internal electrics use good quality components Cirrus digital to analogue convertors and high quality modules for taking the sound and sending that through the outputs.
Originally this player had a suggested retail price of just over £600 being seen as a middle market model within Marantz's range offering something from the more expensive range for those who could afford something better than a basic regular player.
Having had this for a few days on both super audio cd and regular discs the improvements in disc transport and conversion of those digits to sound is certainly amongst the best I've ever heard, sounding more life-like.
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