Is there an SACD that can play cds well?

Dynamics, to answer your question in short - No. However, both Sony's SCD-1 (or Marantz's SA-1) has two digital outputs in RCA and TOSLINK. However, these outputs are for PCM only which means that you can only play redbook CDs with them. Accuphase uses a proprietary standard to connect their own SACD drive and DAC and I doubt if anyone else would support it. My conclusion is, if you buy the SCD-1 or SA-1, you don't really want to use a DAC since the built-in DAC are quite good. But then, no one would stop you if you insist on buying a dCS Purcell/Elgar combo.

I find it funny that no one has mentioned the relatively dismal quality of the Sony SCD-1's analogue output stage. Compared with the rest of the player, the components used for this stage are surprisingly pedestrian. I have the Marantz SA-1, because I felt it had slightly more transparency and tonal accuracy compared to the SCD-1, but a friend had his SCD-1's analogue output stage replaced with high grade components and I don't think I've ever heard anything sound so real.

Globalquest...

For the good of the order, could you mention who did the upgrade of your friends SCD-1? I have heard from other sources that such an upgrade does, indeed, improve CD playback.

Now both of you have me interested, I just hope you are not going to tell me that the upgrade cost more than the original price of the player.

My friend lives in London and he had the work done by a company called audiocom (www.audiocom-uk.com), which is a company founded by former Trichord people. . It isn't expensive just to replace the analogue stage (my friend paid $500 I think), but apparently even an SCD-1 can use some component upgrades to make it sound better, although the gains in performance are subtle compared to the analogue stage upgrade.