Marantz SA-KI Pearl CD player

[culpano]

How awesome does this look. I mean I know the sound would be incredible at £2500 but what an absolute beauty this is. Surely the world's best looking CD player...

http://us.marantz.com/SA-KI-PEARL_Front_96dpi_w1200.jpg

[Bibby_83]

Hi,
Well at £5000 the older one makes this look cheap but at least you get some kind of certificate with it.

What I would be interested to know is how much better this CDP is compared to the Marantz CD7001 SACD (£300)?

[culpano]

I nearly got one of those but bought the CD6003 instead to replace my old CD-94.

[dean999]

anyone listened to or bought the ki pearl?

[Bibby_83]

anyone listened to or bought the ki pearl?

I take back what I last posted - the Pearl is not a replacement for the Reference SACD Players, it is a limited-run model sold through Marantz dealers. I don't know if you have one nearby but Peter Tyson have one on their website -

Marantz SA-KI Pearl SACD Player

Cheers,
Simon

[phil t]

Originally Posted by Bibby_83

What I would be interested to know is how much better this CDP is compared to the Marantz CD7001 SACD (£300)?

What is the SI unit for betterness?

It is subjective and can't be measured.

[Seeker_UK]

Originally Posted by phil t

What is the SI unit for betterness?

I believe that it's 'pounds' or 'dollars'

[skazz]

I didn't listen to the pearl mostly because I didn't want a black box. I auditioned the SA-15S2 from which the Pearl is an improved variant (in KI sig style as Marantz has always done) and found it to be a very good player, easy beating the top Arcam and Rotel models I also tried. It won because it sounded more musical, offered more detail and got instrumental tonality more realistically than the Arcam CD37.

So I bought the SA-15S2 in silver


I also compared the SA-15S2 to the SA8003, which is still two rungs up from the CD7001. The difference was vast. The SA8003 sounded muddy, greatly lacking detail but also musicality in comparison. I assume the KI Pearl is a further step up, but having not heard it I can't tell you how much it differs.

[Bibby_83]

What is the SI unit for betterness?

It is subjective and can't be measured.

True, I was just surprised at the relative cost of SACD Players and the gap between them although I think there might be differences. I agree that it might not necessarily be better but at this price I would expect some improvements to the sound.

I also compared the SA-15S2 to the SA8003, which is still two rungs up from the CD7001. The difference was vast. The SA8003 sounded muddy, greatly lacking detail but also musicality in comparison. I assume the KI Pearl is a further step up, but having not heard it I can't tell you how much it differs.

Apparently the 8003 is similar to the 7001KI (DAC etc.) but I have to say I've never heard either of them. Both the SA-15 and SA-7 belong to the Ref series and I would expect the chassis and component quality to show through.

[skazz]

Originally Posted by Bibby_83

Apparently the 8003 is similar to the 7001KI (DAC etc.)

Personally I've long ago become convinced that the "sound" of a CD player is the sum of the power supplies, output stages, transport and DAC.

So while the SA7003, SA8003, SA15s2 and KI Pearl SACD players all share a Crystal CS4398 DAC, the rest of their circuits are considerably different. And you only have to go and listen to hear the huge differences between these models despite the fact that they share the same DAC.