SACD or not

If the OP has a $1400 budget for the player, unless he listens mostly to classical, and there's nothing wrong with that; I think he'll have trouble putting a large collection of SACDs together.

I beg to differ, tomcy6.  See my previous post.  Many Classical SACDs now going for 5-12 bucks a pop

mahler, how can you miss that in each of my posts I say that if the OP is primarily interested in classical music, he should go ahead and start a collection of SACDs?  That is implied in my second post but I think it's pretty clear that's what I'm saying.

That Arcam player looks pretty good. My question would be is there a DAC/Transport combo that could beat the sound quality of the Arcam for redbook, forgetting the SACD? I don’t think in terms of functionality, you will beat that, except for of course a decent universal player that does UHD Blu-Ray which is top tier disc sound right now (as far as I know). As far as somewhat current, this Pioneer fits the bill as I’m sure some Oppo did.
https://www.amazon.com/Pioneer-Elite-UDP-LX500-Universal-Player/dp/B07HCL34WK
I have a very low-end DSD SACD machine and some discs even shine through there. But for some music it just doesn’t make much difference, despite the big story. So I stopped at about 50 after ten years or so. If I was doing it again, I’d go universal as Blu-Ray audio has some deals as someone posted recently.  But it depends what type of music you are after as well as mentioned.

As a general comment I think the Marantz sacd players are built better than the Sony.  I had a Modwright Sony ES5400 and the transport tray was a weak point.  I now have a Modwright Marantz SA 8005 and it is built very well.  I can't comment on the sound difference since I never heard them prior to the mods.  However, the after mod sound of the Marantz is better than the Sony with the same modifications.