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SACD Transport Recommendations

I am looking to upgrade my CD source equipment from a Yamaha BluRay running through a Denafrips Ares II to something that will enable me to play SACDs and get the full DSD experience. I’ve been looking at the new Marantz and Technics SACD players and I’m happy to invest the $4k CDN to get there. However, I prefer the idea of a transport with an external DAC as an upgrade path. Problem is that I haven’t come across a transport-only device that plays SACDs. Any recommendation?

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stereo5's avatar
stereo5
6,381 posts
 
If you get a SACD transport (Esoteric and McIntosh both make them), then be sure your SACD player will connect to it and properly play the SACD layer of the disk. Both Esoteric and Mac have their own proprietary connections for listening to the SACD layer through an outboard DAC. 
It will be cheaper to just buy a SACD player.  
tom6897's avatar
tom6897
1,484 posts
 
I have had excellent results with Pioneer Elite, Sony ES and OPPO players that play native DSD, DSF files. 
fuzztone's avatar
fuzztone
5,588 posts
 
Buy the best CD transport you can afford and rip the SACD’s if you have a suitable player.
$100 worth of Ras Pi will do it.
Cheaper than getting a converter to peel off the layer from HDMI to get ii into your DAC. The reason there are few transports is because Sony made it hard and expensive to access the DSD stream bypassing the player DAC.
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