Sony SCD-XA5400ES-Best SACD for under $10,000

hi wesstborn:

i don't own a sony but have been considering a purchase. so far the lowest price for a new unit has been $1100. i am waiting to get lucky, and pull the trigger when one becomes avilable for under $1000,. i may not be so lucky.

actually a friend commented upon the fact that opamps in most stock cd players are not the best quality and replacing them can often improve the sound. the question is replacing the stock op amp(s) with what ?

i believe that the modwright mod includes a replacement of the opamps, but am niot sure. his mod is expensive--$1400.

this player has received many comments that extol its virtues, while others highlight its flaws, so i figure, if i buy the player, i would like to be protected by paying under $1000 for a new one, in case i don't like it.

i hope my comments are helpful.

Mrtennis,

While I think your series of posts in this thread have been mostly mental masterbation, and thus unworthy of reply, one comment in your 3/18 post left what I think is a misimpression. My impression is the number who extol the virtues of the XA54000ES far outweighs that of those who highlight it's flaws.

Caveat: I'm a very satisfied owner of an unmodded XA5400ES.

db

Well I now have 350 hours on the Playback Designs player and the sound is much better. I still prefer the Modright Sony for it is more organic sounding. The Playback is leaning towards the dryer sound. We will see if 500 hours changes things.

I have an NAD C565BEE which sounds far more engaging than the Playback Designs....it's for the listener who want's to hear digits instead of music.

I have the Sony and an EMM CDSA with the X upgrade, and although the Sony is competitive (which says a lot), the EMM does a lot better job of curing some of the digital evils, like the annoying glare of some lesser-quality CDs and even SACDs in the midrange (especially some vocals).
This makes the difference in many older CDs with music I love between being painful/unlistenable and being, well, just fine.

My intuition is that the EMM is playing skillfully with the digital processing in some kind of miraculous way, not just playing with frequency response or equalization.

The Sony and other players I have owned just don't seem to do this like EMM. Every CD I have tried with this EMM is free of fatal flaws, and some previously bad ones are now spectacular.

Having said that, on not-so-bad or even mediocre recordings, the Sony really does a great job of eliminating hardness, especially in the boundaries of images, which are silky and detailed, a very nice combination, and image saturation is great. Piano is very well handled in the Sony with impact and no annoying digital bite. And percussion is also great, also with impact and detail but again without hardness.

If the CD does not have an inherent "shout factor", which I feel is the one of the main problems of a number of CDs,
the Sony acquits itself very nicely. Instruments sound life size and just swing without piercing pain, and I get lost in the music. I think the images are even a bit bigger than the EMM, and I like that. And again, the overall signature is silkiness with evident but not overbearing impact.

Thanks for reading.