Best SACD/CD Player up to 3000 street price?

I have had both the Sony SCD-1 and the Meridian 508-24 in my system and for redbook playback I much preferred the Meridian, the bass was superior and I liked the tone of the midrange better too. In comparison the Sony had a brighter and thinner high end and less midrange weight and did not compete in the bass either.

That is just one opinion and a brief amount of time listening in one system, hence my 2cents worth.

BTW on a friends system we AB'd the 2 players and could not consistantly tell them apart, the difference was much greater in my Maggie based system and my friend has B&W speakers.

If you can find a Musical Fidelity 3d, it will give you close to the performance of an SACD player and will match perfectly with the amp. I have the same set up, it is amazing.

There are a lot of threads on this subject. I would suggest you do a search and read till your hearts content. However, I second Stehno's comments, the SCD-1 is simply an amazing player for the money. On redbook it is very competetive with the big names and on SACD it is simply amazing. People love to knock this player but I am telling you it is very very good. The meridian will not compete with this player for detail you will need to go up to the EMC, Audio Aero or the likes to do it.

Chuck

Chuck, I have owned both the Meridian 508.24 and the SCD-1 and had them in my system at the same time for a couple weeks, in redbook playback, the Meridian will compete with the SCD-1, contrary to your comments.

Easy call--SCD-1. I bought one about 6 weeks ago. SACD performance is out of this world, and once you've broken in the CD (which takes several hundred hours), it's competitive with anything out there. Dramatically better than what I was using before (Meta Laser 2 feeding GW Labs DSP (in upsampling mode) feeding Theta Casa Nova). Build quality is incredible.