Dear Ted,
FWIW here is my experience.
I have a sony 9000es, a Lyra Helikon, an 834P and a reference modded GNSC wadia 301.
I find "redbook" cd's on the modded 301 to be vastly superior to SACD's on the 9000es. I also tried two hybrid SACD's and found them to be horrible on the 9000es. Granted, the wadia costs 3x more than the 9000es. I suppose I'm suggesting that you may want to demo a great quality cd player, SACD or not, before putting a lot more money into the 9000es. In my experience, SACD, without a significant leap in hardware improvement did not lead to satisfactory audio, especially when listening to classical music.
I did an a/b comparison between my wadia and my analogue rig using a Helikon low output mc and an EAR 834P. Analogue felt more "live" and and the soundstage was closer. However, with the wadia beat this combination for allowing me to hear detail, pinpoint full tonal ranges of individual instruments and create an airy soundstage. Then, I borrowed a friends aesthetix Rhea, which changed things significantly and now the analogue beats the wadia in every respect. In my situation, I found the EAR 834 to have lovely midrange, but for symphony listening, I'll have to replace it with something that can expose more detail and has more air around the many instruments competing for space in symphonic recordings.
In other words, in my experience (and others may have a different experience) a really great cd player beats a good analogue rig and a really great analogue rig beats a great cd player. Sometimes there seems to be an assumption that a good analogue rig will beat all cd players and that did not match my experience. And I found that the Lyra Helikon is capable of more than what the EAR 834P can do with it.
Jeff
FWIW here is my experience.
I have a sony 9000es, a Lyra Helikon, an 834P and a reference modded GNSC wadia 301.
I find "redbook" cd's on the modded 301 to be vastly superior to SACD's on the 9000es. I also tried two hybrid SACD's and found them to be horrible on the 9000es. Granted, the wadia costs 3x more than the 9000es. I suppose I'm suggesting that you may want to demo a great quality cd player, SACD or not, before putting a lot more money into the 9000es. In my experience, SACD, without a significant leap in hardware improvement did not lead to satisfactory audio, especially when listening to classical music.
I did an a/b comparison between my wadia and my analogue rig using a Helikon low output mc and an EAR 834P. Analogue felt more "live" and and the soundstage was closer. However, with the wadia beat this combination for allowing me to hear detail, pinpoint full tonal ranges of individual instruments and create an airy soundstage. Then, I borrowed a friends aesthetix Rhea, which changed things significantly and now the analogue beats the wadia in every respect. In my situation, I found the EAR 834 to have lovely midrange, but for symphony listening, I'll have to replace it with something that can expose more detail and has more air around the many instruments competing for space in symphonic recordings.
In other words, in my experience (and others may have a different experience) a really great cd player beats a good analogue rig and a really great analogue rig beats a great cd player. Sometimes there seems to be an assumption that a good analogue rig will beat all cd players and that did not match my experience. And I found that the Lyra Helikon is capable of more than what the EAR 834P can do with it.
Jeff