Sony SCD-C 555ES

David99,

Good point but I forgot to mention, the unit was over a year old and had plenty of use. My friend kept it for about 3 weeks and things did not improve. I have to assume it was broken in.

Chris

Dan-To answer your question about break in.
You need to have the SACD player playing music or a burn in track.If you can,just put the player on repeat and let it go at very low volume for a couple of weeks.You can also listen to it during this time! :~)
You have to do this for SACD mode AND CD mode.
I 'think' the SACD mode takes longer than the CD mode.

I think it has a lot to do with the source material rather than the player. It is a well-known fact even among SACD enthusiasts that there are many SACDs out there that sounds like crap. Fortunately, there are more and more SACDs that really show off their edge over CDs. Try some SACD samplers like Opus3, Concord Jazz Sampler, classical recordings with very little noice such as Dvorak Slavonic Dances or something conducted by Szell who's usually pretty well-recorded. Yo Yo Ma Solo and Bernstein conducts discs should have plenty of body. The 555ES is a great player but it's also an accurate player. If the source and room are bright there's nothing that the 555ES will do to lessen that.

Howie - thanks, i'll take this into consideration and try what you suggest. my system and room, however, have never been anything but "un-bright" - the only times i've experienced brightness at all was when interconnects or speaker wire was still burning in. what i'm getting with the 555es is very similar - and a flat sound stage.
as for the source material - so far my selections have been, i think, fairly decent. james taylor's "hourglass" (noy hybrid), allison krauss and norah jones. each of these artists has released beautifully produced redbook counterparts that throw a wide and deep soundstage with my old cal audio CL-10.
i'm going to see if my patience can outlast this break in period. and i will experiment with other interconnects.

Danbern3...

you indicated that you had checked your interconnects and that your system is strictly 2 channel. However, as Rar1 pointed out, you ALSO must reconfigure your player. Simply using the 2 channel outputs does not mean the player is reading the 2 channel SACD layer.