Is Sony SCD-1 still worth to possess?

Richard Kern can be found at www.audiomod.com
Dan Wright is at www.modwright.com.

Both guys do audiocom (an english company that makes the upgrades) installs, and some additional specialty stuff.

I've met both of these guys and had both of their players stomped my stock scd-1 into the ground in direct A to B tests in my system. The mods work and they are not subtle improvements. I recommend both of them equally as people whom I would trust to do the work. They are both very professional (and smart [yikes!]) people.

My player already had some kern mods done to it when I bought it, so having Richard continue with more upgrades made the most sense.

I'm listening to Art Pepper's 'the way it was' on my hot-rod scd-1 now! Superbe et Sublime! Thanks Art! Thanks Richard!

I had Richard Kern do my full Audiomod-UK modification. You can find info on that at www.audiomoduk.com

Richard is a great honest guy. I would recommend him to my mother!

If you don't need to run balanced interconnects, the Sony XA777ES comes very, very close and easily supercedes the SCD-1 performance and that of most others as well under $25.000 in my opinion (redbook and SACD) if modded by the Audience people. (3k extra). Cheers,

John 1: where did you hear a tube output stage XA777ES and did you compare it side by side with the modified SCD-1?

Also, I was told by Dan Wright that the SCD-1 does not have a true balanced output; only a board that splits the signal at the output.

I heard it in my home - Dan brought it over. I only heard it side by side with my stock SCD-1. His tube stage XA77ES was much much better than my stock scd-1. No comparison really. I can't really say if the kern scd-1 was better or worse than the modwright tube player. They are quite different. One has tube warmth, the other has solid state resolution.

I'm happy to offer up my system for a shootout. I doubt it would be conclusive given the tube vs solid state sound of each unit.

I have heard the same thing about the balanced outputs. I know that my modified sony was 'optimized' for balanced output during the upgrade - not sure what that means. I know my modified unit sounds much better on balanced than single ended. The stock unit had roughly the same sound quality on balanced vs single ended.