Ayre CX-7 vs. Meridian G08 ?

Anyone compare the G08 with any quality SACD players? I am in the market for a new CDP and am currently trying to decide whether to go with a SACD/Universal player, or a high quality redbook only CDP. Here's my story (if you are interested):

Now that I have spent some significant time with an Exemplar 2900, I ask myself, is SACD really necessary? This player forced me to stop and think.

Prior to owning the Exemplar 2900 I owned the Sony XA777ES. SACD's on the Sony sounded very, very good to me. Way better than my redbook versions of the same discs. But after spending several months with the Exemplar I began to notice no significant difference, on many quality recordings, between the SACD and the redbook. For example, I owned two versions of Bill Evans 'Waltz for Debby': one was the SACD and one was the Super-K2 20 bit remaster. Well, on the Exemplar Denon, in my system, I could not tell a significant difference between the two, and, on a few tracks, I actually preferred the 20 bit remaster. This exeperience repeated itself a few times.

This has given me pause. It makes me wonder whether I should just go for a really high quality redbook only player and forget the whole Hi-Rez thing altogether (especially because I am two-channel and don't need DVD). While I have invested a lot of money in SACD only about %10 of them were music I re-bought and the vast majority were hybrids -- so it would not be hard to divest myself of the single-sided SACD's and keep the hybrids (which is mostly new music for me) if I wanted.

I have learned a lot and one of the things that keeps coming back to me is that maybe I just had never owned a really exceptional redbook player before the Exemplar. I have not come to any conclusions...I will definitely audition the G08. Thanks for reading,

FWIW, I have had my G08 14 months now and have only had one disc that caused any mechanical noise. That was solved by levelling the player. That disc no longer causes any noise.

Also, in the manual it says the G08 runs its transport at standard CD speed most of the time. It only speeds up when it encounters errors, then it re-reads the tracks at a higher rate to try to correct the errors.

Bhvf - I'm seeing the exact thing you are describing. The volume up/down buttons on mj c-j remote routinely turns the G08 off (putting it into the standby mode). Pressing the mute button on the c-j remote makes the G08 skip tracks - not necessarly the next track, just another track.

This is annoying - you're playing a track and press the volume control for a little more volume and, POW, the CD player shuts down. You would think manufacturers would have standardized on remote control codes by now.

Pardales, that's an interesting observation. I've been auditioning cdp's for more than the past month with the intention of upgrading my 588. In some cases (and I won't be too specific here) the universal platform handled hi-rez material very well at the expense of redbook playback. I have loved my Meridian and am not prone to replace it unless another product is really compelling. So far, my search has narrowed to three players: Classe's Omega SACD2, Ayre's new C5xe and Meridian's 808. The first two are dedicated 2-channel CD/SACD or CD/SACD/DVD-A platforms. (The Ayre, still not broken in, was outstanding in my system, and because of its relatively affordable price is a distinct possibility.) The Meridian is a redbook player only..."only" being an inadequate qualifier here since its redbook performance is absolutely top drawer. I have about a thousand CDs, and about 5% are SACD hybrids so the question remains, is the redbook-only performance worth an extra $4-5K? Or do I sacrifice getting optimal redbook performance to support my 50+ SACDs?

Islandear: We do find ourselves in a similar dilemma. The CDP's you mention are all serious dollar, top notch, players. Hard to imagine going wrong with any of them; it would probably be more a matter of system synergy at that point.

I have about 400 redbook CD's and 150 SACD's (most hybrids), only a few DVD-A's. I listen to my Hi-Rez discs a lot. But I do not want any compromise of redbook performance because redbook CD's are still so plentiful and they are always less expensive and easier to find than SACD's and DVD-A's. I don't know,