SACD Players

Myles, That you know of, are any of the high end manfacturers currently proposing the production of SACD players? If so, which ones and when? Or, are they waiting the format war out. What do you mean by "the low frequency registers sound the same", please explain. Do you find the lack of anti-skating to be a concern or problem with the JMW-12.5? I'm going to upgrade my arm and cartridge andseveral people have recommended the JMW-10. I'm mounting to a HW-19 MkIV and lack of anti-skating just seems to go against conventional wisdom and engineering. Thanks, Doug

Doug, Accuphase has an (outrageously) expensive SACD transport/DAC on the market, and my understanding from my local dealer is that dCs is working on a universal transport. I'm interested by your final question, because the concern you speak of is the reason a friend of mine, after much consideration, went with the Graham arm for his TNT a few years ago over the JMW arm. Quite frankly, I don't think he could have lost whichever way he went, they're both superb products.

Myles, thank you very much for your detailed analysis with my observations. Regarding SACD vs vinil; you are correct that SACD has better "bass dynamic". I love symphonic music and therefore this "bass dynamic" makes me to say "this listening experience is second to the live acoustic music only". Regarding piano, I also cannot argue with you. Its sound ranges wildly from "Italian Co, Glenn Gould" to terrible Volodis. Kavi Alexandr recording may be his worst, again I am not arguing, my point is only that I am very familiar with hall ambience, orchestra and our esteem maesto Sawallich. so I can use it as reference (in CD, 24/96 or SACD mode) Now, you said something EXTREMELY IMPORTANT, if I understood you correctly, SACD signals are converted in PCM format in 9000ES in SACD mode (and from PCM must be converted, finally to analog). Wow, theoretically it should negate all advantages of SACD. Ed Meidtner (spelling?) designer of some SACD machines, said in writing that actually PCM initially is recorded in something very similar to SACD, and he illustered many errors coming with it (e.g. Gibbs artifucts and many others). Thus 9000ES, I hope I misunderstood you!, perform in poor PCM? PLEASE, clarify - Simon

The 9000ES has digital out (coaxial and optical) for DVD, CD, and 96/24. My son and I compared the CD digital out going into my Rotel 985 with the Sony CD D/A conversion and analog into the Rotel. We agreed the both approaches had similar sound quality. I slightly preferred the digital path, while my 22 year old son preferred the analog. Frankly, the diference was very, very small. I could not reliably pick the digital approach.

Rcprince, have you listened to the Accuphase? If so did you compare it to the Sony's or the Marantz? Simon, I seem to recall an item in Stereophile recently (I don't remember which issue, but I could find it) in the industry update indicating that SACD is recorded and mastered in PCM and is only stored and read as DSD. I may be wrong on this but it is what I remember. I don't know if this helps, maybe Myles can shed some light.