SCD-1 can be purchased at 2850 new.

Yes the Marantz is great, but be aware that it's just been discontinued. May find better prices than the $5500. I'm also not sure how long Sony will be selling the SCD-1. Sony appears to be going multichannel with all their SACD players. First the SCD-777 was discontinued and now I understand the SCD-333 will soon go. In the U.S., that leaves only the SCD-1 and the S9000ES DVD/CD/SACD as Sony's only stereo only SACD player. Soon people will be scrambling for SCD-1s, like they are 777's right now.

Tommart, that is true the Marantz SA-1 is discontinued in production. That was there statement piece, and believe it or not -Japanese companies don't make any money with these type of pieces. It's all for show, and this is what we can do , is there attitude. Early in my career I was a house counselor for a large Japanese company.

So buy them while you can, before they are all gone. There were only 250 pieces brought in to the USA.

Yes. The Marantz SA-1 sounds better than my Wadia in regular CD playback. And in SACD playback , the Marantz is in another world of quality playback of music.

I concur with Topkat. SA-1 is indeed better than SCD-1 in just about every aspect. Most of all, SA-1 simply sounded more natural than SCD-1.

The going price for a used SA-1 should be less than $4K. It is a steal at at that price since its redbook CD playback will rival most high end two pc equipment without feeling shameful. The SACD, in addition, will blow you away. I've A/B the Bruno Walter Beethovan 6 against the original Columbia release and a 1984 SONY 180gm re-issue, the SACD has far greater detail and bass definition (my analog frontend is TNT5/JMW12/Helikon) and won easily. The only concern of mine is, will SACD die like XRCD because it is too expensive with too few vendor supports?