Sony DVP-NS999-ES Upgrade


Thinking about upgrading my current digital player and looking for some opinions from my fellow A'goner's. I currently have a Sony 999es which has been serving me faithfully for some time, just wondering if there's something a little better out there (isn't there always!?). Multi channel playback is not an issue as I'd be using it two channel only. What is important is SACD playback. I have quite a few SACD's and plan on collecting more as I love their sound quality. I run the Sony's analog outputs direclty to my preamp for SACD playback and I run its digital out to a DAC for redbook CD's (although, I listen to most of my RBCD collection via my music server and a Squeezebox Duet via my DAC...). An upgrade would be used in similar fashion so the important thing is great SACD playback with provision for digital output.

I'm not well-heeled enough to consider something like an Esoteric or an Ayre, so I'm more interested in something that lands in the $1K or under range. I've been looking at some of the more recent Sony players, Marantz, Denon, Lexicon (why are the Lexicon's selling so cheap?), etc.. pretty open-minded. Any opinions...?

You can view my entire system in the virtual systems under 'The Dog's Toy'
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Does Mod-Wright still do the 999ES mod's, or are they only available on the used market? Have you been able to compare the modded 999 to other units head-to-head?
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OK, so the ModWright 999ES update is a contender. How about some of the other SACD players out there like models form Marantz, Lexicon, Denon, etc? From some of the info that I've read around the web, it appears that with SACD, the important thing is keeping the SACD data stream within the DSD world and not converting it to PCM. True, not true, maybe, maybe not....?
OK, so let's change the title and see if it changes things. Looking for more options and opinions on this than just a direct upgrade to my current player.

And while we're at it... I'm really tired of the "SACD is dead" comments; there's lots of them out there to be had and I've yet to hear one on a decent player that didn't trounce a RBCD. Maybe if we all start buying them, the manufacturers will give us more! :)