The Model 10 honors Marantz's historic high-end traditions, and is a long way from its mid-fi offerings.
"It doesn't sound like class-D."
Two weeks ago, Ken Davis, our sales manager, made a video sharing his excitement about the Technics SU-R1000 integrated amplifier. A new video is in the works, about an amp that he has at home and is really enjoying: the mighty Marantz Model 10. Both are class-D amplifiers, and you may have noticed that we're seeing a lot more switching circuitry in hi-fi, whether for power supplies or amplifiers. The technology has improved to a point where, in the best implementations (it can still be done very cheaply and badly), traditional class-D criticisms don't apply anymore. No more do switching designs just do bass well, and lose the emotion from the mids and up. This comes from a far greater understanding of how to keep high-frequency noise from polluting the audible range, especially those fragile "air frequencies" that contain so much spatial and emotional information.
We're excited to hear more from Ken on the Model 10. Here are some other places where we've seen high-quality switching circuits change the hi-fi game.
Manley Labs released their new Oasis phonostage with the high-tech Manley Power switching supply, designed by the renowned audio engineer Bruno Putzeys. Bruno started at Philips working on class-D power stages, and left to work for Grimm Audio and Hypex (which we know from its class-D modules in NAD amps), and eventually co-founded Purifi Audio, a company that sets the standard for high-end class-D amplification.
If T+A Elektroakustik gives a technology a nod, you can bet that it's a perfect mingling of scientific rigor and musical emotion. The German brand's Symphonia streaming integrated amp, and the A 200 and M 200 power amps use Purifi Eigentak output modules, the global, high-fidelity standard for class-D amplification. The Symphonia uses a special new power supply that outputs a pure sine wave based on special capacitors that recharge 100,000 times per second, which is 2,000 times more frequently than conventional systems. The two power amps are the heavy-fidelity to deploy when you have big rooms and difficult speakers, and don't want to lose an ounce of detail.
An interesting, unique product is the Ferrum Hypsos PSU which uses a hybrid switching and linear supply that offers the speed needed for digital square waves, and the low impedance and hefty current needed for large musical transients.
Here one of our newer products, Eversolo Play, a "just add speakers" system that really surprised at how well it combined an utterly modern large-screen design with a warm, analog sound from that AKM "Velvet Sound" DAC implementation.
Finally, that Marantz Model 10, a 250 Wpc dual-mono class-D amp with MM/MC phonostage. "It just does not sound like what you might traditionally think of as class-D," says Ken. The Model 10 has been built to honor Marantz's historic high-end traditions, and is a long, long way from the budget to mid-fi offerings you might be familiar with. We heard the aesthetic being described as "luxury industrial", featuring a triple-layer aluminum chassis with copper shielding that houses multi-layer PCBs and isolated sub-enclosures.