Marantz reveals more details on 10 Series Reference range

Marantz announced a new high-end Reference range of products back in June, replacing the much-lauded Legendary series that launched 12 years ago. And we've now had the chance to hear a little more about the new 10 Series.

The range has been designed by Marantz’s long-standing audio guru Ken Ishiwata alongside Rainer Finck (who developed the original single-bit DACs for Philips back in the 90s).

The new range consists of the PM-10 integrated amplifier and SA-10 SACD/CD player/USB DAC.

The PM-10 follows the original SC7’s pre-amp topology packing a fully balanced analogue pre-amp stage, and has the ability to deliver the same amount of power as the MA9 mono power amp, offering 200W per channel into an 8 ohm load. That output is claimed to double into 4ohms.

Marantz tells us the power amplifier section is built in a dual mono arrangement, with each channel powered from a dedicated supply. In a break from tradition, the power amplifier circuitry is Class D, but designed from the ground up by Marantz to deliver a suitably high-end performance.

Alongside a whole host of connectivity for just about any set up, the PM-10 features both moving magnet and moving coil phono stages for hooking up a record player. It will be available in February 2017 for £7000.

The accompanying SA-10 supports CD and SACD discs as well as data discs for high-res audio, with a USB-B port for PCM playback up to 32-bit/384kHz and DSD up to a futureproofed 11.2MHz.

In an unusual move the company has engineered its own, high quality disc transport - an action forced by the lack of high quality OEM SACD drives on the market. It's had a close look at the digital-to analogue process too, developing a system in-house (Marantz Musical Mastering) that converts PCM signals to DSD streams before being filtered to deliver an analogue output.

The SA-10 will also be available in Feb 2017 for £6000. Keep an eye on whathifi.com for more when we have it.

MORE: See all our Marantz reviews

Verity Burns

Verity is a freelance technology journalist and former Multimedia Editor at What Hi-Fi?. 

Having chalked up more than 15 years in the industry, she has covered the highs and lows across the breadth of consumer tech, sometimes travelling to the other side of the world to do so. With a specialism in audio and TV, however, it means she's managed to spend a lot of time watching films and listening to music in the name of "work".

You'll occasionally catch her on BBC Radio commenting on the latest tech news stories, and always find her in the living room, tweaking terrible TV settings at parties.