Marantz SA8004 is fundamentally musical

Milpai
As I stated I went from the Sony 5400/ Focal 918 Profile speakers...to the Marantz sa-8004 / Merlin TSM-MMM

It had really gotten to a point that I was only listening to a handful of cds. Those few cds sounded great. As for the rest which included most rock, anything LIVE, and basicly any recording that was not mellow in presentation...i had stopped listening to them.
The cd playback versus sacd on the Sony was very different. sacd was hyper-detailed...very impressive to show off but not exactly my cup of tea for extended listening. I found myself listening to sounds, not music.:)
With the Marantz there is less gap between cd/sacd IMO
The Marantz/Merlin combo for me is great. Very smooth and refined to my ears. Vocals are spot on. No brightness at all. This holds true to the recordings I could not tolerate with the Sony/Focal.
I have used the ipod playback and it is not bad. A little more digital sounding than cd but not a problem. I use it for extended background music... i love just hitting shuffle and let it roll. You can control ipod with marantz remote if need be.
I feel that the Marantz/Merlin combo is surely "MUSICAL" :)
Let me clarify that i have nothing against the sony5400 and i still would love to hear one Modded...but with the Focals it did not match well for me.

As a side note I asked Modwright about Modding the Marantz sa-8004 and he said in a round about way that if there were enough people interested in it...it could be a possibility.

Good to hear the Marantz vs Sony comments. I have heard a lot of good things about the Sony. I love the Marantz I have which is actually the weakest link in my system currently. I would like to have a SACD player with XLR out.
I was not aware that you could control the iPods connected to the Marantz player through the remote. That is a convenience. I am just hoping to pick a nice digital front end in a year or so.

I would appreciate any thoughts about the sound of the 8004 compared to the 6004 taking sacd out of the equation. What differences do you hear listening to red book on both players? Thanks

just for the record:

1) i never said solid state components are crappy. i just indicated my preference for tubes and can provide reasons for my preference. it is obvious that tastes vary.

2) i owned an expensive marantz universal player, one of the
"11" series. i lent it to a friend, who uses as a solid state amp. both of us found the player aggressive and fatiguing.

i guess the issue is what is meant by musical.