Best SACD/CD Player up to 3000 street price?

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.

I had both the meridian 508.24 and the sony es777 multi channel.When I use the analogue outputs for two channel,it beats the meridian in all aspects.I got rid of the meridian.

I suppose we will have to chalk it up to different results in different systems; I am confident in what I heard, not just for my seemingly endless comparison, but also from having a friend listen in as well; he has an excellent ear and when trying to chose which player was playing he was right, or wrong, 50% of the time.