Are "Redbook Only " CD players Obsolete?

Pardales writes:

Prior to owning the Exemplar 2900 I owned the Sony XA777ES. SACD's on the Sony sounded very, very good to me. Way better than my redbook versions of the same discs. But after spending several months with the Exemplar I began to notice no significant difference, on many quality recordings, between the SACD and the redbook.

Let's face it - the stock Sony is not a great Redbook player. It does have potential though, and CDs on my modified Sony sound fabulous. I hate to generalize, as there are exceptions to every rule, but on the whole SACDs sound better than CDs on my rig. The modifications that were done to the XA777ES by Ric Schultz (EVS) made a dramatic improvement to the sound of CDs; but they also improved SACDs. The margin on many discs is as wide as before.

Regards,

Hi-Rez format STILL called analog vinyl :-)

Gunbei-

You know I'm a Figure-4 guy!

Gunbei,
It really is great, it got a rave in HiFi+. In fact it's so good I'm constantly trying to sell it or trade it, always the mark of a great piece of gear. What the heck is wrong with me anyway?

Metralla: That is not hard to believe. I agree that the redbook performance of most Sony SACD players I have heard is only adequate at best. They excel at SACD only, unless, as you argue, they are modified. Then the redbook and SACD improve greatly. I still think modified players are a quality, cost effective, way to go if you want a multiformat player. For me though, there is a comfort level in owning modified gear that I just don't have. I am probably going to dump my single-sided Hi-Rez discs and save up for a great redbook only player.

SACD did get me into jazz and classical music though, so I do not consider it a waste of time and will keep the vast majority of my hybrids.