Are sacd mods really worth the money?

Still financially reeling from the 20 s , I just could not wait for the inevitable "triclkle down " engineering in the sacd camp.I bit at Tweeter s 399 on the Phillips and wondered if the mod upgrades were worth it . Modwright and Reference Audio Mods have been great with informative , fast responses. Both offer interesting paths. To answer , this system is a dedicated multichannel room that does theatre with the Runco 1000 c dlp and 82 in firehawk. Hughes hd - direct tv gets me hdtv . Downstairs is the Classe Omega amp and preamp on Nordost valhalla and Quattro fils with either the Totem Shamans { underrated speaker by the way , its their flagship but the smaller products in his line get better press ]; or the Accoustat Spectra 66 full range ESL s coupled to a Mirage 210 sub w xternal lfx 3 x over. Source is the Bat vkd5 se as well .

BW - I am also intruigued with Dan's "absolute truth" tube mods but as they are 2 channel only I guess you one has to decide if one wants to retain multi-channel presentation or not. I am also waiting on Ric Shultz to offer his opinion on where he thinks the Philips can be bettered.

The first thing everyone who bought a Philips 1000 has to
do is, take it out of the box,break it in and listen to it.

It's a very good sounding player once it's got some hours on it.

The Reference Audio Mod's Performance Upgrade Plus mod changes a lot of parts for $1200.(parts-$782.+ labor, their stage three mod is $2100.),the key is what parts make the biggest bang for the buck.

Suggest you talk with other modifiers like Stan Warren and
see what they offer.

I plan on doing some dyi mods to my unit, but I don't think
it's wise to invest alot of money.

What's the resale value on a $400. player with a $1200. mod?
Will it sound better than a stock SA 1, that has an establish resale value?

I agree with Kana813. Although some of the mods may be great, let's face it, it is a lot of money to invest with virtually NO resale value.

I hate to say this but it is almost a gimmick with these ultra high cost mods out there. How could they possibly be a good value? I would buy a nice, proven non-modded piece with resale.

I am not certain how important multi-channel sound is to you. Myself, I would wait for a used sa-1 and not modify it. The stock marantz sa-1 and audio aero 24/192 are the best stock player's I have heard.

Modification sense depends on your budget, resale patterns, and existing system. I have only heard a/b of the higher end players, so I cannot comment on the effectiveness of mods to the lower players. I consistently read positive comments from people who have had the mods done.

I have the fully hotrodded (all the audiomod mods) scd-1, and it nukes almost everything out there. (Note: The audio aero is better if you like the tube sound). It does beat up on the SA-1, but the margin is smaller than any other unmodified solid state player, including the scd-1. The hotrod scd-1 has a cleaner sound, much wider soundstage, and superior bass slam & articulation to ANY cd playback I have heard.

My system's mods cost 3200. You can buy an scd-1 for 2300 so you are in the soup for 5500 for a ONE BOX world class cd/SACD player that has an estimated resale value of 3500-4000. My system's soundstage goes a good 10 feet past the room walls with the mods and perhaps 1-2 without. It truly does take my system to another level. If I take the player out I lose this effect. That's using a placette passive pre (1K), quattro-fil cabling(2K), an ayre v-1x(9K) & eidolon speakers(13K). This means the cd player is 5K/30K of the system cost. Good value to me.