scd 777es sacd sony mod worth it?

hey detlof, light a fire under their butts or something. let us know if they give you an ETA. i think i'm more excited about it than you are.

Hey Kubla, what in your opinion, what is the audiophile word on the modded 777es, does it sound better than a turntable and lastly is ther any way to put a tube inline someplace to make it warmer and less harsh and more liquid in the midrange? Thanks for your consistency.

Samcard, take a look at my posts here and on other SACD threads. In short, Jerry Ozment can add his tubed output stage from the Audio Logic DAC to the 777ES, with a separate analog power supply, and bypass its analog stage. I'm very happy with the result. SACD sounds "different" from a good turntable to me in that it lacks analog's warmth, but it sounds similar to a turntable in terms of openness and ease of presentation (something I never felt CD gets right), and better than a turntable in ultimate dynamics and fidelity to the source. I still ultimately prefer my turntable when I want to relax and get lost in the music, but SACD is very close. I don't know if it will ever be more than a niche product, which is a shame as it is a step forward from CD, in my book.

Kubla, yesterday they told me three weeks or so, which translated probably means five and yes I'm not particularly exited, I just rediscovered my stash of old "shady dawgs" and living presences and I am having (a) field day(s)...and nights.
Samcard, Rcprince has said it all, though my experience so far has been only with the unaltered 777. It has a nice soundspace with SACD and big orchestral works are indeed better than with redbook cds, but so far, even as far as ultimate dynamics are concerned, nothing comes close to my modified Goldmund/Jadis/Jadis/and Spectral/Spectral/electrostats combination. But then stators generally are not the last word in overall dynamics, though as far as speed and risetimes are concerend, they will beat the living hell out of practically anything else. ( The Jadis 200 preamp together with the Jadis 500 monoblocks, which are not as resolving as the wonderful Jadis 80 monos alas, give you dynamics from say pp to fff, which you must experience to believe. The 80 to my mind/ear will go from ppp to about ff) Try the shaded dog with the Viennese Walzes with Reiner and his Chicago Symphony. Especially the last cut on side two.
Regards

Detloff, you're right about the differences between the 80s vs. the 500s. Did you spring for the JP200???? I saw one for sale on the 'Gon but couldn't pull the trigger and look my wife in the eye! On the question of dynamics, I doubt if many of us really have the systems that can take full advantage of the theoretical dynamic range of SACD, but for what it's worth, (a) I've always felt vinyl's dynamics were better than Cd's, probably because of the harshness of CD's at loud levels which makes it tough for me to listen to them at the loudest levels, and (b) SACD's dynamics can outdo vinyl's, on my system, because that harshness is gone.