Linn Unidisk or Musical Fidelity kW SACD or ???

Good evening, Audiogonnnnn -- In case anyone is out there listening, here is an update....

Today I went to my LD and gave a listen to his Linn 2.1 and the Musical Fidelity kW SACD he just got in last night. I had heard the 2.1 at another dealer, and was interested to see whether I came away with the same impression as last time. Answer -- yes. It is a nice unit and does a good job with the soundstage and keeps the higher end pretty liquid. Still, it is kind of weak in the bass. Interestingly, both this 2.1 unit and the 2.1 unit I listened to from the other dealer could not play the vocal on track 6 of Elenor McEvoy's "Early Hours" SACD.

The MF kW SACD was interesting. I thought it did a very good job reaching low and controlling the bass. It was a tad edgy on the high notes, but I attribute that to the fact that it is a brand new unit with no break-in time, and because the dealer hooked it up by its solid state RCA connections (the cool thing about this player is that it has both solid state and tube connections!).

I have the kW at home now, and I will be auditioning it this weekend. I am listening to it right now, and I am pretty impressed. Not sure where I will come out on this one, yet.

So here is the question, for anyone who has a view -- Audio Aero is launching its new "Prestige" CD/SACD player in a couple of weeks. This will be a $13K unit. If I like the MF after this weekend, should I just get it, or should I hold off for the AA Prestige? Anyone out there hear the Prestige at any recent shows that would like to share the experience? Is any player worth $13K??? Ahh, what an obsession this has become....

Never mind. I have ended the audition. What a huge disappointment! After running the MF kW SACD for a few hours, it would lock up if I tried to play an SACD disc after playing a CD. Instead of just starting with track 1 after the SACD was inserted, the player would flash "Play" and then start scrolling through the tracks on its display screen -- 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. The first time this happened, I grabbed the remote and keyed in the track I wanted. This worked the first time. However, the next time I went from a CD to an SACD disc and had the same lock-up, I could not coax it to play even with the remote. I tried powering the unit down and restarting it, and it worked (what is this, a Microsoft op system???). BUT, the next time I went through the CD to SACD sequence, neither the remote nor the power-down efforts could convince the player to play. Despite the fact that the kW SACD sounded pretty good, I won't get it. At this price point, it is just unacceptable to me that the unit is so finicky that it cannot play a disc. The search continues....

Tin_ears,
Just curious - did you ever get the chance to hear the Classe Omega SACD 2? Seems like it would be a "bargain" considering what you went through with the MF. How disappointing.

Oldpet,
No, I have not heard the Classe SACD-2, yet. That is now at the top of my audition list. The MF demo unit was working this morning. Must be a problem with an overheated circuit or do-dad. Anyway, it is going back to the dealer.

I'm honored to have the opporunity to help break in my dealer's brand-spanking-new KW SACD this weekend --- it's changing sonically almost by the hour, becoming better and better.... The sound is absolutely stunning already --- I've never heard as much detail, dynamic range, or as deep a soundstage as this player produces, and I've done a large amount of auditioning of the high-end players. It also pulls more texture and detail out of the bass nether regions than I've heard before. It really does almost sound like vinyl, especially on SACD. The most amazing part is that it makes CDs sound SO good --- they're absolutely NOT digital-sounding (unless, of course, it's a terrible recording or mastering).

As far as the tube or solid-state output stages, so far I like the tube output stage better. Music just has more body through it, especially vocals. It perhaps sacrifices the absolute minutest bit of detail, but just overall sounds better than the solid-state output.

Anyway, I've just got a couple comments for those others auditioning one/considering one.... I have 2 beefs with the unit:

(1) [BIG BEEF] The drive mechanism is so dang noisy that in quiet passages, I can hear it quite clearly from my listening position (which is about 7 feet away from the KW in one of my 2 systems). With all the ventilation holes in the top, the unit just makes a lot of noise.

(2) [SMALL BEEF] It takes about 25 seconds to load up and play a CD, all the while making all these nasty-sounding noises that are clearly audible per my point (1). It takes only about 10 - 15 seconds to load an SACD. My best guess is that the player must try to recognize discs as SACDs first, fail a few times, then read them as CDs.

Oh, and just so you know, be careful moving this thing around -- it weighs about 45 pounds (oof!) and is fricking huge! (19 inches wide, 18 inches deep, almost 7 inches high). And please note that you probably won't want a rack shelf right near the top of this thing --- a tremendous amount of heat (for a CD player) comes out of the ventilation holes on the top....

Overall, it's an outstanding player. I'll be serious time comparing it to the other player I've got in my house at the moment (a Copland CDA 822, which is also a stunning player for CDs) today. If anything interesting happens, I'll write again....