Daniel J SaitMarantz has announced its 12 Series Special Edition models, the PM-12 Special Edition Integrated Amplifier and SA-12 Special Edition SACD Player with DAC-Mode.
The manufacturer’s dedicated in-house Sound Masters occasionally identify products with higher potential than expected, then hone them into Special Edition models through attention to detail, embarking upon more considered component selection and tuning over countless listening sessions. The original SA-12 and PM-12, solely created for the Japanese market, proved themselves worthy of such attention.
Drawing additionally upon achievements made while developing the KI Ruby series, the Marantz Sound Master together with the company’s European sound engineers have crafted the new 12 Series Special Editions.
The PM-12 Special Edition Integrated Amplifier uses a fully discrete two-stage design with separate power supplies for the pre-amplifier and power amp section. The circuitry offers the cleanest signal path to the amplifiers, which deliver 100W per channel into 8ohm speakers, or 200W per channel into 4ohm. High-quality nickel-plated copper input terminals and high-purity copper speaker connections ensure this signal purity is maintained from the moment it enters the amp until it’s sent to the speakers.
The PM-12 Special Edition draws on the design of the PM-10 and PM-KI Ruby Amplifiers by including a moving coil/moving magnet phono stage, complete with Marantz Musical Premium Phono EQ circuit and Marantz HDAM technology throughout.
The completely analogue design of the PM-12 Special Edition contributes to its low noise floor and its clean build. While building a DAC into an amplifier may offer convenience, the digital circuitry is, by its very nature, electrically noisy and can interfere with the delicate analogue signals passing through the amp. That’s why Marantz chose to retain this all-analogue ethos, keeping the PM-12 Special Edition as sonically pure as possible and dedicated the DAC-Mode to the SA-12 Special Edition player.
A disc mechanism built purely for audio, the ‘SACDM-3’ is able to play SACDs, CDs and compilations on CD-ROM or DVD-ROM. It also has an asynchronous USB input, able to handle formats all the way up to PCM/DXD 384kHz/32bit and DSD11.2MHz. The Marantz Musical Mastering Stream transforms all PCM file formats to DSD format, using advanced filtering and proprietary processing before the Marantz Musical Mastering Conversion converts the 1-bit data stream directly into an analogue signal without the use of a conventional digital-to-analogue converter.
The Marantz PM-12SE and SA-12SE will be available in September at authorised Marantz retailers in a black or silver gold finish, each priced at £2,999.