SACD to Audio Aero Capitol

10 days ago i had a shootout between the Capitole and my Marantz SA-1. the Capitole sounded great, but not in the league with sacd on the SA-1.

the sacd was more open, detailed, and natural. voice was more textured and "real" sounding. a piano was more dynamic and "complete". if you were not going back and forth you would not easily realize the differences. but over time the naturalness of sacd comes thru.

my conclusion; even a great cd player like the Capitole falls short of a very good sacd player. the additional resolution of sacd wins every time assuming a sufficiently hi-quality output circut.

to rzado I traded a Wadia 27 digital converter for the modified Sony player, I never had the opportunity to directly compare them A/B. was using the 27 with a Wadia 20 transport I've never used the Sony as a transport only. The Capitol hasn't arrived yet. The problem with SACD is the limited software available for my music taste, there are less than 20 available I like. The differences between Red Book and SACD on the titles I've compared is so minute its barely worth the change. Would switch to SACD if the software I like was readily available example Pink Floyd.

I would probably agree with the fact that a true DSD transfer could probably be"better" than a great redbook only CD player.However with the limited titles that are true DSD it really is not worth making comparisons since there is so little true SACD software.The SA1 is great player,but there are a # of players,Mephisto II,Capitole,Accupahase,ect that beat it on redbook.SACD is very promising,but Sony is well on the way in producing another Beta fiasco with their poor selection of artists,and lack of real DSD transfers.When you think about it,if there were not companies like Telarc,DMP,ect Sony would have just about have zilch in DSD.Personally ,finding a top notch redbbok player is the way to go.You will never run out of good available software.

Sattothestars, i agree to an extent with your comments. the SA-1 is merely "very good" for cds so i have a Linn CD-12 for my 16/44. i also did a shootout between the CD-12 and the Capitole where i preferred the CD-12, but not by alot. on a previous thread i went into much detail on this event.

i do feel that even sacds not DSD sourced still sound better on my SA-1 than the cds on the Capitole, but the amount of difference is not as consistent.

On SACD sound the Marantz SA-1 is untouchable at that price point. In RedBook CD playback one has to spend Big Bucks to match up the sound of the Marantz SA-1. Use to have the Levinson 31.5 & 30.6 combo (sold it once I heard and bought the Marantz SA-1). Levinson combo plays great Redbook CDs, but could not justify in comparison to the the Marantz SA-1 as playing both formats.

Be happy for today and the future, stick with the Marantz.