Marantz was in at the start of CD, launching its first player — the original CD-63 — in 1982. In the following years, Marantz became well known as the CD-Player specialist. Drawing on the development process for the flagship SA-10, and designed by the same team, the SA-12 Special Edition was created to celebrate the love of music and exalt the mastery and emotion of music. Marantz Musical Mastering technology defines new standards in the digital and analogue audio processing. 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 D/A converter. The Marantz engineering team created this player to deliver the kind of sound able to bring you closer than ever to your favourite music. The reason is simple, and central to everything Marantz does — because music matters.

• Engineered and extensively tuned by a team drawing on more than 35 years of Marantz expertise in CD players
• Innovative Marantz Musical Mastering “MMM-Stream” up-sampling to DSD and filtering
• Custom-designed 1-bit direct “MMM–Conversion” from DSD to analogue
• High quality analogue output stage with Marantz HDAM-SA3 technology and low impedance output
• In-house developed Marantz SACD/CD mechanism “SACDM-3” designed purely for audio
• Playback of SACD/CD playback and of compilations on CD-ROM and DVD-ROM (audio)
• Asynchronous USB input for hi-res audio up to PCM/DXD 384kHz/32bit and DSD11.2MHz
• Isolation of USB and digital inputs to block noise from connected sources
• Power supply using toroidal transformer
• Dedicated headphone amplifier with all-discrete construction featuring HDAM-SA2