SACD vs RBCD players


Which should I buy, a top SACD player ( like the top end Sony ) or a truly outstanding RBCD player like the Cyrus 6 SE? The review from "What Hi Fi?" on the Cyrus player is so good, I wonder if RBCDs sound as good as SACDs?
esmith3671
I have already stated that analog is my first format choice. That being said, I own roughly 50 SACD's and 500 RBCD's. I find that when listening to digital, I wind up listening to about 40% SACD and 60% RBCD.....mostly due to aforementioned reasons. I would say that I listen to 70% vinyl and 30% digital.

BTW, I'm not a huge classical fan, but I do enjoy classical. I've found that jazz also has a large collection on SACD, and that is my favorite genre.

FWIW, it sounds like you are trying to talk yourself out of an SACD player by saying "I begin to suspect that the number of SACDs I would listen to on a regular basis might not be that many."

If you want a fancy name RBCD player (Cyrus/ Resolution Audio?), I'd say go for it. IMHO a SACD on a Sony (Marantz, Esoteric, etc) will sound better than any RBCD player, but I wouldn't want SACD to interfer with you getting what you really want.

Cheers,
John
"Why are there not more SACD-player manufacturers in the high end?"

you have SACD players from Krell, Esoteric, Luxman, Accuphase, dCS, Ayre, Playback Designs, EMM Labs, McIntosh, Mark Levinson etc they all are making hi-rez players now since CD players ale limited to low-resolution only.

latest Esoteric and Luxman SACD players models
Hmmmm, not sure how to answer that question? I have 100's of LP's, hundreds of RBCD's and probably a hundred or so SACD's and I listen to all of them, but I'm not sure I can say what actual percentages would be? Music is a huge part of my lifestyle, so I'm more concerned with the performance and the music itself than anything else. SACD's always shine through relative to sound quality next to RBCD, but that's not to say that RBCD's are chopped liver and I don't like them! On the contrary, I think there are some FANTASTIC sounding RBCD's. Ultimately, good music is good music. I listen to a lot of different flavors; rock, jazz, lots of classical. With all genre's, higher rez digital media like SACD's always impress.

You mentioned before that you like classical music; may I suggest that you visit arkivmusik dot com and check out the SACD's they have available... I think you'll answer your concerns about performances, artists and availability.

As John says, don't talk yourself into something that you don't really want and won't value out of. If for you, pure RBCD is the way to go and that's what will make you happy, then that's what matters! I'm obviously a big proponent of SACD, but that doesn't invalidate another direction.

Happy listeneing!
Thank you all for your input. After reading this thread through several times I've decided to go with an SACD player. The purpose of my prior post is simply to get some kind of an idea of how much SACD use I'm going to get out of the player.

In the case of John, above, only 10% of John's digital collection are SACD, so it could be said of John "that the number of SACDs [he] would listen to on a regular basis might not be that many", however they occupy a large 40% of his digital listening time. That sounds very promising to me.

Out of curiosity, I would be interested in hearing others usage habits.