Hi Dekay and Bmpnyc, I am basically an analog only guy, but I feel pretty good about the 9000 ES, especially when there are enough break in hours on it. Tonight was music night, and along with my usual four or five visitors, a couple that occasionally comes (man and wife) also dropped in, bringing SACD titles that I do not own. The Audioquest sampler with Mighty Sam McClain and Robert Lucas was among them, and we played our favorite cuts, all the while, I was thinking that it sounded very good. Afterward for comparison, I pulled the two LP copies of these artists and played the same two songs on my analog rig. I can certainly say that the LP won the contest, but at no time since I have ever owned digital, has it ever been closer. I must confess at this point, that my SACD player is plugged into a Clear Image from Audio Prism, has Purist Dominus RLS power cord and Dominus RLS RCA interconnect. In addition, it is sitting on roller blocks and those are sitting on a special isolation base built by Purist Audio currently only sold in Japan.
All that being said, the player and all the extras attached to it still cost less than my phono cartridge. Consideration should be made on behalf of cost, and this unit is worth the money. The bad news is on the subject of CDR's, mine will not play any that I have attempted, not even the very highest quality ones I recently burned at 1 to 1 with the new Que!Fire firewire CD burner.
I too wish that Bmpnyc could visit and bring his Pioneer DV-37. I have no experience with any other players, except the Levinson that was brought here for that one test. That contest was so lopsided, I considered the Levinson could have been defective. When I ask about the possibility, the owner said it had just been returned from the factory where some mod was done. Perhaps break in on the Levinson could have been a factor. In any event, when the owner heard the comparison, he put his on the market the next day.
I don't want to influence any of you to buy the Sony and wind up disappointed. I was just jived that it worked so well, played my DVD movies and did an excellent job with both Redbook and SACD. I hope that others will make additional comparisons and post here. If something is better than what I have, I am not opposed to an upgrade, provided the cost is proportional.
Last thing. The couple that brought the SACD titles purchased a Sony 777 over a year ago, and when (tonight) I brought up the topic of break in on my 9000 ES, needing at least 200 hours, they laughed. They said that twice they threatened to return their unit and still later tried to sell it because of terrible sound. The performance only came at over 500 hours (their quote), and now they are so totally pleased with it, they would not give it up for anything. I hear this story over and over, so there must be something radical that happens to these players in the long term.
I am hoping that sometime soon, I can borrow their Sony 777 for one of our music sessions. This would provide an opportunity to do a comparison between it and my 9000. They want to borrow my Wolcott amps to try on their Maggies, so I have a little leverage :~). I will try to remember to post results if we manage the test.
