I've never owned a Yamaha player either, but they make a couple pretty high-end ones that get good reviews (at least sonically). I would be curious to hear from anyone who has heard the CD-S3000 or even the CD-S2100 and been able to compare it to the SA-KI and SA-10.
The manual only mentions the lights, displays, headphone output, and digital output. Is this based upon your own experience? I rarely use my USB drive, so I'll try unplugging it. I appreciate your information. I'm just curious. Thanks.
With the Ruby, I can’t hear any difference with the display/lights on or off. Interestingly, my Marantz 804 seemed to sound a little better with the lights on. I say “seemed” because I finally figured out that the volume was ever so slightly higher with the lights on, which I think would explain why it seemed to sound better.
I have a Yamaha S1000, but the Ruby betters it. The sacd playback is similar with both, but the Marantz is much better with redbook cds.
Me either, but it's no surprise since -- I would imagine at least -- the power supply and power to front panel is so well isolated or shielded from the main board that outputs to the jacks. But I really do miss the dimming feature found on every other Marantz product I've owned. I can't figure out why that wasn't included on the SA-KI. I think it's available on the PM-KI, which is weird. Don't know about the SA-10. I always like to chose the dimmest setting since my lighting is dim in my listening room.
I checked the SA-10 manual and it does not list dimming the display. I wish the display could be turned off when the player is at idle. I find myself turning the Ruby off unecessarily when all I want is the display off. Odd that you can turn off the display when playing music but not at idle.
On coax it will turn off if my streamer is on, even if music isn’t playing. However, the marantz display shows 16/44.1 when the streamer is idle, so there’s signal, but not music. If you have it on disc, the display won’t turn off if there’s no disc.
Well I waited a bit more to decide on a Ruby and before too long, no more Rubys. Ended up going in a different direction and purchasing an X1 Lumin Streamer for my main rig, and moving my T2 streamer to my second system. Main thinking for doing this: With the exception of maybe 20 discs, Qobuz and Tidal have everything I already own and typically at higher resolution than my CD. If I need to, I can rip and store on my server and stream locally to the Lumin A decade ago, I had a stellar transport - a $4k Pioneer PDS-95, a hulking 50 lb stable platter unit that fed a TriVista DAC. I compared it to a highly modified Squeezebox with an LPS hooked up to a Mac Mini and streaming ripped versions. I’ll be darned if the streamed version didn’t better the CD. Fast forward and Qobuz and Tidal have zillions of higher Rez files. The Lumin was had at an excellent price, albeit much more than the Ruby. It is an end game digital component, that upsamples to DSD if you fancy. Roon compatibility- Roon has made my music listening so much more enjoyable such that I decided I can’t own a piece of digital gear that is not Roon compliant. With Roon, music discovery is amazing. Love a tune but want to hear the acoustic version? What about a cover by another artist? Wait, there is an earlier version a decade before your favorite artist sang it? Lyrics? Who played that amazing steel guitar solos? Bam, all that info and choice at your fingertips! If I need to own something in physical formats I’ll likely buy in vinyl. Same ritual as the CD. I appreciate all the help and feedback and still wish I could’ve heard the Ruby if only once.
I'm not sure why you are asking for advice on a Lumin streamer in a Marantz CD/SACD player. Other than wishing you bought or heard the SA-KI Ruby your questions are way off the topic of this thread. It'd be best if you asked your questions in a Lumin streamer thread or started a thread with your above questions. Otherwise the focus of this thread will be off the topic of the SA-KI Ruby.
nothing really special with the X1 lumin. it has a dual ESS9038 pro DAC that supports (like every other DAC with that chip) DSD512 and PCM 768khz. the lumin does DSD upsampling to DSD128. since you are using Roon anyway you could just let Roon do the upsampling to DSD 128 - 512 and will probably get better sound quality. or you use HQplayer along with Roon to really improve things. but for the nearly 14000 usd they are asking for the lumin , you could have bought a high end DAC like the SMSL SU10 (less than 1k usd) , a really good M2 Mac mini pro or a NUC to run Roon and HQplayer + a raspberry pi as streamer. and you would have probably around 10000 usd left. that would be more than enough to buy a SACD player like the Technics SL-G700M2 (3500 usd) that plays MQA CDs as well.
I believe they are still available but are not on sale anymore. It's still under-priced at $4000 IMO, as $4,000 was the original price, which was never raised even as everything else seemed to go up. Marantz SA-KI RUBY Super Audio CD Player with DACDefault Title
Steve Hoffman should be getting a commission given how many KI-Ruby SACD players Ruby Amps that we have sold for Marantz.
The same here -- this thread is the reason I own an SA-KI. And also the reason I was able to buy the PM-KI yesterday on eBay.
Excellent! I was so tempted to buy that PM-KI on eBay. Glad you did as it removed any further temptation . Enjoy!
It’s possible that one Ken Ishiwata-voiced device is enough for any given system under the “too much of a good thing” theory of audio (which I just made up).
Thank you for posting the link! I am pretty excited now that I received the shipping number. The temptation was driving me crazy. But to be fair, I did give you until after dinner to beat me to it. Thank you! The seller has been super responsive, and he’s even double boxing it for me, and I didn’t even have to ask. I promise to post an update, once I have done some listening. In the meantime, I am listening to In The Time Before Llamas by Cowboy Junkies on the SA-KI Ruby and it’s absolutely fantastic going through my Onkyo integrated amplifier.
