SACD Players

Having not heard the latest Sony offerings, I can't comment on their sound, although Simon appears to be an excellent listener from his posts and I would tend to give his opinions respect. I don't think Sony is missing anything; I think for once they're getting the right idea of producing cheaper players (with a progressive scan DVD player to boot!) and getting the possibility of marketing SACD to the masses. Now if only they would make their SACDs hybrid discs like everyone else and lower the prices of software, the medium might be able to stick!

Simontju- Any idea how to turn off the filter?

Linamine. You ask two entirely different questions. one is subjective: "How they play DVD". My answer is to push button with word "PLAY". Now, your question "How $1,200 Player sounds better then $3,500 (and I would add $5000 as well) is more difficult to answer. I will split my answer for you on two. Firstly, I stated that I am biased, it is highly biased opinion. How I developed this opinion? I don't like to compare one piece of equipment with another. I (try to) comapare it with live acoustic music. I spend 12 years on music education (piano) and I am lucky to live in Philadelphia where sound (and importanly, ambience) of Academy of Music is easily reacignisible on many records made there. The latest, among many, is "Nature" by Waterlilly in 24/96, Red Book CD and SACD. I described in the previous post my system and you can, therefore, judge for yourself of its degree of fidelity to acoustic music (Many people demend fidelity to the actual recording which for me is one of many steps of reproduction of acoustic music. Unfortunatelly, I do not listen to electronic music and thus cannot comment to it. In summary, for my ears, in my system, in my acoustic environment I firmly (but dubjectively) believe (as of today not three years from now)that SACD sound is the best among, CDs, DVD-A, Vinil etc. I listen to Sony SC-1, owned 777ES and again I believe that sound of 9000ES is much superior. Non-biased, professional answer. According to Scatt Hall of Electraglide and few others th transport in 9000ES is much better then in previous SACD units, others suggest that its D/A chip is of second generation. I am out of this discussion, sorry, guys, for the lenght - Simon

You might check out Michael Gindi's review in the Winter issue of Ultimate Audio where he and Lars Fredell compared the Sony SCD-1 and the new Marantz SA-1 SACD/CD players.