What is the SACD Mod business all about?

With any piece of equipment, unless it is an all out assault on reference performance, with a cost no object design, some compromises must be made in design. On most high-end gear, these compromises are made on components that the designer feels will have the least negative impact on the sound. Also, as Rich hints to above, the mods on already good gear can be somewhat subjective.

I don't think very many people will argue that SACD is not a solid improvement over redbook CD's, and many of the new SACD players are also a huge improvement on redbook playback, so you get the best of both worlds.

FWIW, I have a stock Sony SCD-XA777ES, and I think it is excellent on both formats.

Mike

Count me as one a the few that would argue that SACD is NOT a solid improvement over CD.

I do believe SACD is much better than standard CD all things being equal. The depth and width of the soundstage are the areas where I have heard substantial improvement. I have also heard improvement in the same areas with the redbook layer of the SACD over conventional CD. Though not to the extent of the improvements garnered with SACD
I have a stock Sony SCD-1 and enjoy it immensly. Will I have it modded maybe in the future. But I feel you do not need to modify the player to hear the improvement of SACD over CD.

Chuck

I have two moded sacd machines. Neither is just a parts upgrading. One the Allen Wright Sony 9000 has a new board in it, and the other an Exemplar (Tucker) Denon 2900 has a tube analog stage in it. Both are greatly superior to stock units both for sacd and cd. The Wright unit costs $1000 plus a Sony 9000 for a total of about $1600. The Exemplar/Denon cost $3000 including a new Denon. For these prices they rival or exceed units costing $10,000-$20,000.

On both good sacd is clearly superior to good cd, but good cd is superior to poor sacd. On the Denon good sacd is superior to good dvda.

Robert, as I read your question, I think you are wondering if SACD is a bust without modification ("If the format has to be modded to sound good maybe I should just stick with cds.") Not true. First, any mods you have done will improve the redbook CD performance of your player as much as (perhaps more than) its SACD performance.

People have been modding stock CD players from the beginning. The reason there is so much mod activity around SACD players is that (1) the new format is so promising. People are hungry to extract the best they can from it. And (2), there weren't too many players out there at first, so not many all-out assaults to choose from.

You should consider modification an opportunity--an option if you want it--but not a requirement for SACD.