Are sacd mods really worth the money?

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.

Platsolos, you have a point. I would "hope" a SACD1000 with mods would beat up on "stock" players costing 2x the price of the player plus mods. That way, resale value is a non-issue. Else, you are right, you'd be better off with the more expensive, stock player to begin with.

If I could buy a $399 SACD1000 and put about $1k of mods into it. I'd expect to BLOW AWAY ALL $1.5k players. In fact, I'd expect it to compare favorably with players costing much more. In that case, if you're "getting $4k+" worth of sound for under $1.5k, who really cares about resale value at the point? You getting much more performance for the dollar in the first place. Resale is a (reasonably) moot point. YMMV.