Opinion on McIntosh MCD 201 SACD player

Hey Jaybo,
Your response is completely without merrit. This is a brand new unit for Mac and they can't make them fast enough because the demand is so high. The mcd 205 is not a better unit. You should get your facts straight before you post. Sacd's are still being produced with over 4000 titles and growing and with the ever growing multi format players arising at reasonable prices it should be here for a while. The mcd 201 is pretty awesome!

3793 SACD titles to date, not including a large number of Asian releases, hardly a demise.

many of the nearly 4000 titles which have been released on sacd have already ceased to be manufactured. the hybrid discs are primarily selling to consumers without sacd, so the music companies do not need to invest the money in the futre. At this year's NARM convention there will be '0' sacd promotion from any of the major labels and most indies. the mcd205 is a better redbook player (it was after all a legendary nakamichi mechanism and design, and still must be regarded as one of the most 'natural sounding' players in service . the mcd201 is as good of an sacd player as anything in its price range. a player which handles several formats obviously has a convenience advantage, and mac, as usual, is late for the party. mac always has a shortage of new models when they are introduced.

Greeni's question is still on the table. How does the Mac 861 universal player sound compared to the MCD 201? Does anyone make a bullet proof cd/sacd player that does not skip,strain and blow up (make sudden burst of white noise) like the Music Hall Maverick?

I was told the "MCD201 is a bit better than the MCD205 on CD. The MCD201 does add a SACD "playback". If you were only running CD's though, the variable output on the 201 would allow direct connection to a power amp, negating the need for any preamp. Based on the extra cost of the MCD201, I decided to keep my MCD205.