What SACD Player

[dave2010]

Don't forget the substantial noise above 20kHz generated by ALL SA-CD players. Some amps don't like it much, let alone metal dome tweeters.......

I am aware that noise shaping may move noise above the generally audible spectrum, but is that then passed through to the output? Surely some SACD players will have a filter to prevent that having an effect on other equipment, either an analogue filter, or a switchable digital one.

I speak from ignorance here, as I don't know what SACD designers and manufacturers do in practice. Some equipment might react badly to a lot of high energy high frequency noise.

[Busybee330]

Oppo are working on a firmware for DSD through USB 2.0

If they succeed , you could well have the best of both world ( SACD and DSDiff ) if you like the sound coming from their take on the ESS Sabre .

[Audioman]

Don't forget the substantial noise above 20kHz generated by ALL SA-CD players. Some amps don't like it much, let alone metal dome tweeters.......

Urban legend Dave! That noise is filtered out or inaudible in my experience. At least for whatever reason it can't be heard except by bats.

[Spectral Morn]

Personally I would give Marantz a miss - not because of sound quality but mechanical noise. I have an SA7 - my second - and I have to keep it on the bottom shelf of the rack farthest away from me because when its playing an SACD (all it does in my system) the mech noise is so loud that if closer to me it would be totally unacceptable. This is the second sample as the first was louder.

I would look at Esoteric, Accuphase, Linderman and Wadia (S/H only I don't think the current ones play SACD). DCS only if you like an upfront, in your face, hyper detailed, unmusical sound - in my opinion.

Krell do SACD too but I haven't heard one so I don't know how good they are.


Regards Neil

[vouk]

I would look at Esoteric, Accuphase, Linderman and Wadia (S/H only I don't think the current ones play SACD). DCS only if you like an upfront, in your face, hyper detailed, unmusical sound - in my opinion.

Krell do SACD too but I haven't heard one so I don't know how good they are.


Regards Neil

If these names come into the equation and your budget can stretch that far - I would also add the Ayre CX 5 (?) to the above. Heard great things about it. I believe it's a universal player but still worth considering.
I've only heard the older Krell SACD player and thought it was rather good but a tad too clinical for my tastes; my only recent experience with an SACD player was with the North Star Sapphire which I really, really liked.

[jasonC]

pioneer does a sacd player that hughes direct are selling for just short of £170

http://www.hughesdirect.co.uk/hi-fi/...pd10-s/product

[Audioman]

The cheapest way to get decent SACD is to buy one of the old Denon multi-format players. Players that cost £1000+ new are now going for £80 to £150 as users who bought them as an upmarket DVD machine migrate to Blue Ray. These will have the benefit of playing DVDA as well. You can set to play stereo only by connecting to TV and then place in your rack and forget the video. You only have problems with accessing music DVD's as opposed to proper DVDA without a screen.

Otherwise to get SACD that actually will outperform a decent CD player you will need to look at something like a Marantz Pearl Lite (£679 on offer), though some of their cheaper (£500) models might do.

Paul.

[Disbeliever]

Don't forget the substantial noise above 20kHz generated by ALL SA-CD players. Some amps don't like it much, let alone metal dome tweeters.......

Never found this to be a problem or with metal dome tweeters ?

[Disbeliever]

Personally I would give Marantz a miss - not because of sound quality but mechanical noise. I have an SA7 - my second - and I have to keep it on the bottom shelf of the rack farthest away from me because when its playing an SACD (all it does in my system) the mech noise is so loud that if closer to me it would be totally unacceptable. This is the second sample as the first was louder.

I would look at Esoteric, Accuphase, Linderman and Wadia (S/H only I don't think the current ones play SACD). DCS only if you like an upfront, in your face, hyper detailed, unmusical sound - in my opinion.

Krell do SACD too but I haven't heard one so I don't know how good they are.


Regards Neil

I found sound quality on the obese Marantz SA7-S1 to be very poor despite rave reviews and sold mine to a guy who also sold it I month later. Easily the best player is the Sony XA5400ES but preferably via HDMI into the Sony DA5400ES AV receiver HATS for low jitter. HFN Sound Quality rating 85%

[UV101]

some of the earlier Marantz players have switchable filters for this. The SA8400 had a switch but the SA7001 (same transport and PCB with a couple of different value caps!!!) didn't.

I think the actual output filter is designed to deal with this much in the same way all DAC's need some sort of filter to keep unwanted noise off the audio output.