Sony SACD Player SCD-XA5400ES; YAY or NAY?

Oh yeah, not to once again tout my now scorned Mytek Brooklyn Bridge, but I do get better if not earthshakingly better CD sound when I send the Sony's CD signal through the Mytek via Opto.

$40. Integra CDC-3.4 Mark II arrived: 'Mech. Error'.

Cover off, revolving tray was resistant to movement, a bit of a forced spin, it freed up, works perfectly. Less than 5 minutes!

I think someone dropped it, or carried it upside down or something. 

some fresh lube, now what?

Sony SCD-xa5400ES due Sunday.

Makes up for the humiliation of the lost Denon spring. I didn't like the sound of the Denon, but someone might have preferred it and wanted it.

@secretguy Sony is still making/selling combo 4K Blu-ray/SACD/etc players--see crutchfield.com  I bought the one with 800 in the model in very late 2020. Frankly, it it was not for one issue on my Blu-ray player and the growing numbers of 4K discs, I might still not own any player and SACDs

One thing that makes it tougher for me to judge this player remains the dearth of SACDs and--for those you can find on ebay, the cost can  be an issue.  So I have found my "collection" to remain small so far, making it difficult to compare a beloved CD to its SACD counterpart since SACDs are an exception and not the rule--plus I only have the one Sony player.  I cant justify buying another without having a growing library.

SACD was kept alive, albeit barely, by Classical Music.  I have a few hundred along with a few dozen Blu Rays, both with and without Audio.  Non Classical listeners don't have much reason to go after SACD playback.

   The 5400 in my collection has gone basically unplayed during the dozen or so years of its existence.  I had added an OPPO shortly after purchasing it and the DAC was superior, one of the first ESS implementations.The OPPO also played DVD-A (I bought every one available when Tower Records had its going out of business sale) and Blu Ray.  The Sony sounds like soft haze in comparison, although I guess I could plug it in and try it out again.I had moved the Sony to a second system, rarely played it there and then added an OPPO 203 to that system when OPPO announced it was going to stop making players, and the Sony has been on the bench ever since

The remote went missing years ago.  I should probably sell it off.  I've only sold a few components in my time as I find the ordeal of listing a component and dealing with buyers and shipping pretty tiresome.  And then there is the issue of no remote, the fact that it skips the first measure of play if and SACD is played thru HDMI (it doesn't do this if the analog outputs are used, or if a rebook is played through HDMI.  At the time I googled it and a few others were having the same issue).  Given those issues, not sure what I should ask for it.  Maybe I just donate it to Goodwill and take the tax deduction.

SACD/DSD ... CD/PCM

I only have about 25 Hybrid SACD’s out of 4,000 CD’s, and had no plans to buy any more unless used and inexpensive. Mine are Hybrids, so I always have the CD PCM layer and the SACD DSD layer to compare.

No one in the ’Better CD’ conversation mentioned SACD’s almost always being converted to PCM, I found out later. I read a hell of a lotta reviews, none mentioned it, until the one I wish I hadn’t read!

I realized I have never heard DSD without intermediate conversion to PCM, then conversion to Analog. After all this work, I ought to hear SACD/DSD no PCM conversion stage right?

Prior to that, my quest was done. That’s what the xa5400 is about for me.

Then, it appears that it does juice up CD’s x 8, so there is that potential difference to possible prefer.