sony scd x5400es

I think it is an excellent CD player.

Kal

I just bought one from the same source. This player replaces my old Phillips SACD 1000 that had bitten the dust in typical fashion (a slow disintegration of functions and abilities).

I've had it for 48 hours and am in the process of burning it in. So far the SACD side is great and had a noticable improvement after playing for 24 hours.

The CD side is coming along although my 5 year old Ah! player with upsampler and Amperex tubes still wins. Do a search in reviews for more info. Out of the box I was not impressed by the CD side but am very hopeful now. The CD part is supposed to have a VERY long break in period. We'll see....

You should note that the player is not multichannel unless you are running HDMI to a home theater set-up. Otherwise this is a stereo player.

Build quality is good. Very heavy and deep although the sheet metal should have been dampened.

One quibble so far: On SACD you can get album and track titles scroll across the display but you have to page the remote to get there. IMO Sony should have allowed you to set a default display.

Be prepared to invest a lot of $ for software (SACD discs) that do not have a whole lot of titles and may or may not be a viable format. I have a lot of SACD discs, and I'd like to loose a box in my equipment rack so it made sense for me but it may not for you.

Hope this helps.

thanks ed, your pointing out the potential for so-so cd performance. please let me know after the player has 500 hours.

The sony's rbcd playback is the unit's most incredible asset.Older cd's reveal layers of detail encased in a
huge soundstage. Kal was right, it makes rbcd playback
sound like the scad layer!