Modded SACD player: SACD or Redbook sound best?"

I suggest you check at least one title, for example Stravinsky: The Firebird (Mercury Living Presence SACD)

http://sa-cd.net/showtitle/1687

and then judge for yourself whether your red book CD improvements were worth the money, and how much truth there is behind Boston audio society study published by AES...

:))

Go for a hybrid,You can have your cake and Edith too.LOL!

I'm not sure how they did the double blind AES test but if they couldn't hear the difference, they're "doubly deaf".

On good recordings, sound quality is noticeably better on SACD in terms of inner detail and highs especially. Music has more body and air. It isn't subtle.

While most SACDs sound clearly better, there are a few 2 channnel mixes that do not since they weren't re-mastered well or the same, or multi-channel was the focus. Roxy's Avalon & Brubeck's Take Five were big dissapointments to me. I was surprised about the latter as Jazz is usually good and that recording was one i thought they'd take care with.

However, there's no comparison between the 2 versions of Krall's Love Scenes. The SACD just blows away Redbook. That's enough proof for me as the CD recording is damn good - one of the better in my collection of hundreds. A comparison of Allison Krauss on both formats would yield similar striking differences. If you like classical music, strings, especially violin, can be tough to listen to on CD, but just beautiful on SACD.

I don't own hundreds of SACDs but I'd guess around 10-15% of the time SACD recording is only so-so and not better than CD. Pop's the trickiest I think.

SA-cd.net is great and the best place to find music on the format. If you link your purchase though the site you're making a donation to it!

Good luck and happy listening!

I had a listen to a Sony 9000ES level 6 mod with Uber Clock with high end Thiel speakers and Ayre amps etc and compared the Bowie Ziggy Stardust SACD ,EMI remaster and the new SHM copy.The SACD was best and SHM very close with the EMI remaster was NOISE with no separation to the instruments. On my own setup I didnt think the EMI was so bad so it takes a HIGH END setup to show up the poor quality.We also demoed many different SACDs and the different sound staging for different music showed what this Sony mod player can produce.I was very impressed..Eamonn

Until recently, I had become convinced that redbook on the best units was more dynamic than sacd but that sacds had a better soundstage. But the Exemplar moded Oppo has changed that. Sacd is clearly better IMHO. But I would also argue that redbook off a harddrive is better than off an optical drive, and you cannot put sacds on a harddrive.