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SACD Players

Hello,

New member here. I am looking to add an SACD player in order to play the DSD layer of SACD directly. Based on my research I have shortlisted PS Audio Direct Stream Memory player and McIntosh MCT500.

Option 1) I currently own McIntosh MA5300 which means I can use MCT500 with supplied DIN cable connected to MA5300’s DA1

Option 2) Purchase PS Audio Direct Stream Memory player and DirectStream DAC MK1 (Both discontinued)

From what I understand the memory buffering and Air Lens would make the media sound better. Whereas, I haven’t found many reviews on MCT500.

Both options would roughly cost the same. I am looking for the better sound. Which option is better? Any advice or insights would help.

Thank you,

SA

rlsammie
mahler123
3,362 posts
 

Magnetar universal players are basically the successor to Oppo. I believe the company was founded by the Oppo engineers that designed their UDPs. Their menus are identical to Oppo and you can either play the SACD with the internal DAVs or use them as transports to export the DSD over HDMI to a DAC such as the Bryston DAC3

lanx0003
860 posts
 

I like Pioneer Elite line.

https://www.stereophile.com/hirezplayers/515/index.html

rlsammie OP
9 posts
 

Thank you everyone for your feedback and advice. Since I already own and love the MA5300 integrated amp, I have opted to stay within the Mcintosh ecosystem.  I ended up purchasing a preowned MCT500. This is the easiest and the most straight forward way for me to send raw DSD layer from SACD using the DIN cable.

I should be receiving it over the weekend and report back. 

curiousjim's avatar
curiousjim
4,767 posts
 

@risammie

The beauty of going with PS Audio, is that they are one of a very few who can transfer the DSD layer from their transport to their upgradable DAC.  Most others have to use a built in DAC that can be of poor quality.

All the best.

richardbrand's avatar
richardbrand
185 posts
 

@rlsammie I understand that you have gone down the Mcintosh route, but I’d like to comment for others wishing to go down the SACD path.

First thing to be aware of is that most SACDs contain both muti-channel and two-channel (stereo), as well as a completely separate CD layer. Many "audiophile" SACD players only play two-channel stereo so are quite restrictive. I personally do not believe in the argument that because we only have two ears, we cannot hear surround sound, let alone the immersive sound now available on Blu-Ray with even more channels (eg Dolby Atmos).

One route is to buy a universal player which can play (most) silver disks including CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, 4K and SACD. Manufacturers like Panasonic do not want to pay royalties to Sony for SACD, but that is not an issue for Sony. The cheapest Sony universal player starts at about A$250, or for about 10 times as much you get into Reavon and Magnetar. The latter pair are built around the same System on a Chip (SoC) as defunct Oppos, hence the familiar menu structure.

I have Marantz, Sony and Reavon universal players which all play multi-channel and stereo SACD. The Marantz and Reavon have both digital (HDMI) and analogue outputs. I mainly feed a Marantz 8800A AV Preprocessor which has 8 very high quality two-channel DACs.

Astonishingly, the Reavon 200 has one DAC for CD playback and another for multi-channel analogue playback. Neither of these DACs is state-of-the-art. Worse yet, the SACD playback is down-converted to CD quality so you lose all the benefits of Direct Stream Digital (DSD). This is clearly audible!

The saving grace is that you can effectively use the Reavon 200 as a transport, passing DSD over HDMI, just like the far cheaper Sony. My Marantz does a superb job of decoding the DSD!

The Reavon is available without analogue outputs but with SACD playback as the 110 model at a much lower cost. I am not sure if there is an impact on video quality. Anyway, hope this helps somebody

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