Sony SACD Player SCD-XA5400ES; YAY or NAY?

Balanced to avoid problems in long complicated runs backstage, ok.

home, a 1 meter cable, no interference ever with anything, HOW can a balanced VERSION of Analog (after all processing) be better???

Thanks Everyone,

I just bought a very lightly used Sony SCD-XA5400ES because:

1. Multiple DACs

2. Dedicated Lasers for SACD and CD

3. SACD DSD/DAC/Analog without a PCM intermediate step.

4. It MAY (no consensus) upscale CD's to SACD #s

"an 8x-oversampling filter and a noise shaper that result in a 2.8224MHz signal-sampling frequency—the same as that of DSD. "In this way, the SA-DAC presents both CD and SACD signals to the final converter stage in the identical 1-bit/64fs form."

.....................................................

Expectantly, it will sound better than the Yamaha DVD-C961 I found and presently like a lot, which sounds as good as the Onkyo Integra CDC-3.4 II I also like that I just sold because the Yamaha also plays SACD, Onkyo CD only.

NO ONE mentioned this xa5400 in my prior CD search. Who knows what I might have done if someone had.

IF, like the supposedly superior Oppo's I tried, it is not a preferred sound (I avoid 'better'), I will, like the Oppo, resell it. Hopefully not, then keep the Yamaha in the garage system, sell the Sony that is there currently.

Thanks for advice, ideas, YAYs mostly!!!

Elliott

this was back in the day, but my memory of what i thought remains pretty clear

the sony es series cd players (which played sacd’s as well) were excellent - smooth detailed liquid impactful sound

the other cdp that was also quite highly regarded in the day was the marantz cd63se, it was the reviewers' darling, making a number of best for money lists in tas, s-phile, sensible sound etc etc

i remember comparing a cd63se that belonged to a good hifi buddy at the time, and compared it to my sony scd777, which iirc was about twice as expensive, so maybe not a fair fight, but the marantz had such a great reputation among reviewers

what i recall was the marantz sounded forward and detailed in comparison, but with great bass, whereas my sony had better imaging, smoother treble, more dimensional midrange, and not as prominent (but still excellent) bass depth and control... i was glad i tried them a vs b, it made me feel glad to have my sony, it sounded more like analog to my ears

then years later i bought a top of line scd-1, went on mod trail with vsei warren gregoire and so on... partly due to that experience

for what it's worth, fm service manual, an 8 oversampling digital filter is shown in the signal path, pg 39, IC202

file:///G:/23%20DOCS%202021/audio%20related/cd%20players/new%20cd%20player/sony%20scd-xa5400es/SONY_SCD-XA5400ES_Service_Manual.pdf 

You can find excellent condition used Oppo105s. A big plus is It has separate XLR outs (best sound), then go to eBay and get upgrade IEC,110/220 bypass jumper, and a Linear Power Supply for around $400: one company has step by step pictures. As a bonus, its a very good video player

hth