Considering a new SACD Player

Everyone (except Elizabeth) seems to forget that all alleged “super audio” playback media designed to overcome alleged deficiencies of Redbook CD playback (16-bit, 44.1kHz) are simply bandaids to a now-solved problem today. Just get a decent, low jitter transport and a decent modern DAC and be happy. Hell, a lot of decent modern CD players provide such benefits.

@celander 

Excellent point.

My old ( although fairly new to me) C.E.C player fed through to my Ayre EX8 by AES has given CD a new lease of life.

As an owner of the Yamaha, I support the recommendation of the CD-S2100. It's built at a much higher level than you'd expect from a large manufacturer. In support celander's point, this unit won't force you to buy 2 pieces of equipment (and associated cables)  since it'll play CD, SACD, and it's DAC supports DSD native playback.

My only nit to pick on the Yamaha is the slow layer change function if you're loading a dual layer SACD. Otherwise, it's a solid pick.

Thanks for you response.  I’m planning to listen to both the Yamaha, and the Marantz.  My dealer speaks highly of both!

Seems like cd players all sound different. The Yamaha CD S2100 had synergy with my system. It was even kind to marginal sounding cds. Moving up in the food chain might be a step up, but would that mean worse sound on marginal sounding cds? My system CJ Premier 11A Tube Amp,  CJ  PV11 TubePre Amp ,Apogee Centour speakers ,Yamaha cd S2100   (Replacing cambridge audio 840C cd player)