Teac SA-60 Supplementary Manual
June 2007
Audiolics Anonymous Chapter 92: Esoterics
Review By Bill Gaw
Welcome to our June meeting for those suffering from Audiophilia Nervosa, defined as the intense need to
continually improve upon our systems no matter what anybody else says. While not a psychiatrically approved
diagnosis, it is a form of obsessive-compulsive behavior that could be treated with multiple medications, but
what's the fun in that. I'd rather spend my money on improvements to my system.
On the other hand, about a year ago, my system was sounding so good that I felt at the time that further
improvement was unwarranted, that I could be happy with it forever, and if I had not been a reviewer would
possibly have been cured of my incessant tweaking behavior. Unhappily for my bank account, this was not to
be, as you can perceive from my past few columns. Since then, there have been marked improvements in
control of electrical gremlins, speaker cables, interconnects, digital storage, etc., which proved to me that audio
reproduction is still not perfect and improvements are still being made. This is made clearer every time I attend
a live unamplified classical concert. While my system comes close, especially with DVD-Audio or SACD
surround, one can still perceive, even in the next room, the difference between live and recorded, even with the
best discs.
Having said that, my system has had three significant equipment improvements in the past three months, two of
which will be reported on today, and one next month. Each is considered to be close to the state of the art, and
all have demonstrated that no matter how good your system sounds, there will probably always be something
that can be improved upon.
Teac Esoteric SA-60 Audio Disc Player
While the above review is probably of little
value to most of you, this section should
be of interest to the vast majority who are
into digital audio. I've been very content
with my 3-plus year old Parts Connexxion
modified Denon 5900 universal player but
felt that it may be time to update as digital
has advanced significantly in the past few
years. Sony may have thought that there
was "perfect sound forever" back in the early 80's, but its only been in the past couple of years, 25 years after
digital arrived, that it may have caught up to analog. Have been waiting for a decent High Definition Universal
DVD player with the ability to decode Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master which is supposedly better than DVDAudio and SACD, but nobody has come out with one yet that can d o it. Like with previous generation s of audiovideo products, audio is being treated as the stepchild. HD DVD and Blu-ray players have advanced the video
side to its highest standard of 1080P output while none of the players can even decode the mid-level Dolby and
DTS streams, never mind their best iterations, and until recently couldn't even transmit it to an external decoder,
of which there still aren't any anyways. Plus the only so-called universal player on the market that will do both
video systems, from LG electronics, not only can't do the high def audio, but also can't do some of the special
video stuff of HD DVD that less expensive players can. Plus none of them can do DVD-Audio or SACD
reproduction, so all are a complete waste of time for audiophiles.
While there are many universal players out there that can do several audio standards with very good audio
quality, at least until now, all of them do not seem to be able to reproduce any of the types quite as well as
single standard top of the line players that have been tweaked for that particular type of disc. I and probabl y
most of you don't want to have separate CD, DVD, DVD-Audio, SACD, HD DVD and Blu-ray players filling our
racks. The best, such as those from Meridian, Linn, Sony, etc., can do one superbly, and possibly two or three
standards very well, but either fall flat with another or not do them at all. Also, after 25 years of Redbook CD, it
appears that some of the manufacturers have finally figured out what was wrong in the reproduction of CD's
with previous generation machines. There's been a Renaissance in digital reproduction such that maybe now
we are actually picking up all of the bits of information from the discs and properly decoding it to analog.
Sadly for the digital disc and my generation's craving for collecting tangible reproducers, such as tape, vinyl or
disc, within a few years all of the standards may be obsolete as ever more high speed internet an d ever more
cost effective computer memory may wipe out their need. Or, if they get their act together, maybe HD DVD or
Blu-ray or some combination may finally be able to decode the lossless studio-master quality Dolby and DTS
tracks on the discs to high-end standards, supplanting DVD-Audio and SACD. But I think, like with vinyl and
CD, we'll still want to be able to play back those discs to the best level possible. On the other hand, it seems
more and more of the younger generations don't really care about quality, just quantit y. They run around with
their digital players with earbuds using encoding 20 times worse even than CD and feel happy with the
reproduction. Will there even be a market for high-end audio reproduction in the future? Even the major
companies such as Sony, Philips, Pioneer, etc., have stopped producing their high end transports and reverted
to plastic decks. Finally, video is supplanting audio-only reproduction. Why just listen to music, no matter how
high the quality of reproduction, when one can also view the concert in high definition at the same time. Once
the high def video systems allow the audio to catch up, we'll all be able to see and hear our favorite artists
possibly better than what's available in the average concert hall seat.
So what company in its right mind would pay the experimental, development, tooling and production costs to
bring out today a high end player that cannot decode any of the new audio standards and cannot do any video?
Why, Teac, http://www.teac.com/ of course. "Teac, you say!! I thought they sell only mid level audio equipment!"
Actually, they have divisions both for high-end audio, called Esoteric, and sell some of the best professional
recording and reproduction equipment through Tascam, another arm of the company. For instance, my DVRA1000HD digital recorder is a Tascam.
When our editor first asked me if I wanted to review a high-end universal audio-only player, for the above
reasons, I thought TEAC's Esoteric division must be out of their mind. Who with all of their marbles intact would
spend $3500 for the SA-10, to $4600 for the SA-60 to $26,600 for their P-03 D-03 reference dig ital system
when they don't do video, and will have absolutely no ability to decode the new high definition audio standards
coming out on HDDVD and Blu-ray? As I thought about it, it dawned on me that there probably is a market out
there for them; mainly audiophiles looking for the best DVD-Audio, CD and SACD reproduction who will then be
able to wait until the high definition brouhaha settles down, and those who have absolutely no interest in video.
In addition, it's doubtful that either of the high def video standards will continue to offer DVD-Audio and SACD
as part of their players, so one will need a proper playback method for the soon to be obsolete standards.
So what's the big deal about bringing out a new high-end player and why the significant expens e for these
TEAC units; the cost of developing a new high end transport mechanism? It turns out that both Philips and Sony
have stopped producing their best transports, thus stranding other high-end companies that can't afford to
produce their own. Teac has actually come up with two of them; the VRDS-Neo (vibration free rigid disc
clamping system) transport for their super high end "if you have to ask you can't afford it series" and for those of
us with poorer bank accounts, their new VOSP (Vertically aligned optical stability platform) transport for their
less expensive (under $8,000) series, which they are also offering for sale to other companies. Both are mostlymetal construction, with the Model 1 Series VRDS-Neo weighing 14 pounds just for the transport.
Since the VRDS-Neo is used in their $6000 plus units, which is really too high for my Scot blood to tolerate, and
they had just come out with new lower priced SA-60 at $4600, and I was not interested in going the video route
with their DV-60 universal video player at $5600, and I also wanted to be able to play multi-channel and DVDA's which the SA-10 can't do, Mark Gurvey of TEAC graciously offered to send me their SA-60 audio-only
player for review. Unhappily, as I was going away on vacation and didn't want it sitting on my front step for a
week in the winter, I asked him to hold shipment on it. Through a mix-up, the unit that was coming here went
someplace else and, as they are supposedly selling like hotcakes, another was not immediately available.
Happily, Mr. Gurvey was able to find a replacement after a couple of weeks, and even offered to give me a
three to six month review period, with the condition that I didn't do any intense listening until the unit had broken
in for 250 hours. That's right 10 days and one hour of continuous playing. Did I listen to it as it was breaking in?
Of course! Was there an improvement in that time? You betcha. But more on that later.
The SA-60 is a 37 pound behemoth weighing more than most amplifiers, with a silver finish, the chassis
consisting of aluminum and steel, basically built like a battle ship. The front plate is minimalist brushed
aluminum with three buttons on the left labeled "standby-on", "upconvert”, and "play area”. The first is selfexplanatory, with the unit remaining warmed up at all times, using only 2 watts in standby and 28 watts during
playback. The "play area" button determines which of the many types of playback are available on most discs,
be it the multi-channel or two channel SACD or DVD-Audio area, or the CD or Dolby or DTS areas. "Upconvert"
will be discussed later. Above these are four lights designating whether the 16/44 signal from CD is being
upconverted and whether SACD is being played back directly as DSD or being converted to PCM before D/A
conversion or transmission through the FireWire connector for external conversion.
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