Best SACD player for the money - Marantz SA-11S1

I would like to hear more comments on the stock performance of the SA-11s1 from those who have lived with it for a while.

DCaudio there was a single disc 555ES in europe. Maybe that was part of the confusion?

Pardales,

I had the player for about a month and a half before sending it off for modding. Based on the performance I heard, compared to my modded Denon 3910, I was questioning whether the mod was necessary for this unit. Ever the audio adventurer though, I sent it in for the evalution. I'd heard good things about the mod outfit that had agreed to attempt the effort. They are not going to be able to put a superclock 3 in her though, as it turned out that the players clock speed is almost double that of even the Superclock 3. They are working on an upgrade to the SC3 that could handle the Marantz player's speed, so it'll be a two part mod. Upgrade power supply, caps and critical parts now, and later the upgraded super clock.

Thanks, John_beavers. That is the kind of feedback I am looking for. The TAS review of the SA11s1 suggested it was at least as good as the Sony XA9000ES, which is saying something. I am considering a stand alone SACD/CD player and want a good one, but am not interested in mods at this point.

DCaudio, that's EXACTLY what I am talking about. Again, I do not doubt TRL's abilities or Paul's knowledge. Nor do I doubt the value of his mods. Perhaps Paul doesn't mod every player but he can/will mod many players, especially Sony models. Like I said, outside of something that completely makes the model not a good unit to mod, TRL can mod it and improve it.

What threw me off is that he told me he can mod my the 555ES yet didn't know it was a changer. When told that it was a changer he simply said "yes right". My idea is that he doesn't really know the exact unit that I'm talking about, but that's probably because it wouldn't matter to him because he would be able to mod it and improve it anyways. The question is in terms of absolute performance, what would be the best player to mod? It can't possibly be the 595 as he would have me believe before he found the Marantz. So my concern is that he initially told me the 595 would end up being better, which meant I might as well sell my player. But later when he told me that no he just modded a 555ES and was the best he has heard, I have to start wondering.

My belief is that TRL has had a lot of players come their way, and has learned a lot since the past few months. The thing is that TRL unlike many respected modders out there, is not selective. Which is great for us who want to keep their units but want to improve its performance for a modest price. But for those looking to rank players based on price, you won't get the type of answers that buyers generally seek out of TRL.