Oppo UDP - 205

I am hoping if some of you have compared one such Sony SACD player to the Oppo, which one is better for SACD stereo/surround?

Hi atacgene. Welcome to the forum. I don’t think this discussion ended :) My view is it’s never to late to resurrect a thread/topic. One of the problems with this forum IMO is there is so much duplication of data (good and bad info) that it becomes more difficult to search and find whatever you might be wanting. This is because people have a tendency of starting a new thread instead of just reading and/or posting in an existing one.

Anyway, to your question, years ago I had a Sony SACD/DVD player. I forget the model, but it was an "ES" series which is their best offering. But, I only have one SACD, a "Sony Sampler". So I have little to remember as far as Sony SACD playback is concerned. When I got my Oppo 205 in what seems like eons ago now, I did use the SACD simply to check that the Oppo would play it. It did, and very well. So while I cannot provide you with specific comparison information (Oppo to Sony), suffice it to say that should you decide to purchase the Oppo 205, you will likely be very pleased with the sound quality of SACD playback.

I must have looked at wrong date. I see your comments in the thread too, thank you. For some reason, audiogon does not notify me when there is response from the threads, so I am not aware of responses until I check the threads

There is a green tab/button that reads "Follow this discussion". Just click on that and you will be notified every time a post is made on this topic.

I see, thanks!

I think I may do Oppo 205 mainly for playback of Blu-ray but then I can also get a hi-end A/V receiver like Carey Audio and feed my 95 via HDMI . Wonder if that would work better ? There is also theory that HDMI may compromise the sound but I have never tried this method. Marantz also has good receivers but there are skeptics who do not like Marantz (as it is kind of commercialized generic receiver). 
For SACD, regardless, I think direct playback from the SACD player is the best so as not to contaminate the DSD, and also won't run risk of PCM conversion. I tried SACD M-ch via oppo 95 and it sounds pretty good! I am wondering how much upgrade there would be for 205 regards to M-ch playback of SACD and Blu-ray. 

In the meantime I waiting for my Sony SA-60 to arrive which is purely for SACD M-ch playback.