Thread: Buying a Player

Posts: 5

Post by threerandot July 27, 2006 (1 of 5)
I am not in any rush to buy a new SACD Player. I only have about 14 discs. I am thinking perhaps next year when I have many more discs and there is a change in the market. I do have the Sony SCD xe670. A very modest player. I would prefer to spend about $600 to $800 Canadian for a decent one. Perhaps even a used player.

I live in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada and the stereo market is already very limited here. The only other player I have seen is at the Sony Store. The 595. Any better than the 670?

I have considered a mod of the 670 but living in this area there probably isn't a sould within a thousand miles who could do it. Then there is the nasty business of shipping, trusting the modder and of course the expense of sending it over the border.

I bought a Cambridge Audio 540c CD player from Peak Audio in Halifax. A very nice step up from my 8 year old Technics SLPG-350 which was very reliable, but also very anemic in sound. Peak are not showing any interest whatsoever in selling SACD players. I really don't know what their problem is. They feel that a very expensive 2 channel player is better than the best SACD player. This is really a decision that should be made by the consumer. Worst of all, they have had people pass their threshold and ask for an SACD Player and they still will not carry them. Not really sure what their beef is.

At any rate, I hope some people around here have been taking a close look at the market and can make some recommendations in the price range I have specified. I do look around the internet, but finding Canadian retailers who provide SACD players is not easy. You call them on the phone and ask for a player and they sound dumb struck. At least the one I called.

Are there any Canadian Dealers who actually back the format?

threerandot

Post by fafnir July 27, 2006 (2 of 5)
threerandot said:

I am not in any rush to buy a new SACD Player. I only have about 14 discs. I am thinking perhaps next year when I have many more discs and there is a change in the market. I do have the Sony SCD xe670. A very modest player. I would prefer to spend about $600 to $800 Canadian for a decent one. Perhaps even a used player.

I live in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada and the stereo market is already very limited here. The only other player I have seen is at the Sony Store. The 595. Any better than the 670?

I have considered a mod of the 670 but living in this area there probably isn't a sould within a thousand miles who could do it. Then there is the nasty business of shipping, trusting the modder and of course the expense of sending it over the border.

I bought a Cambridge Audio 540c CD player from Peak Audio in Halifax. A very nice step up from my 8 year old Technics SLPG-350 which was very reliable, but also very anemic in sound. Peak are not showing any interest whatsoever in selling SACD players. I really don't know what their problem is. They feel that a very expensive 2 channel player is better than the best SACD player. This is really a decision that should be made by the consumer. Worst of all, they have had people pass their threshold and ask for an SACD Player and they still will not carry them. Not really sure what their beef is.

At any rate, I hope some people around here have been taking a close look at the market and can make some recommendations in the price range I have specified. I do look around the internet, but finding Canadian retailers who provide SACD players is not easy. You call them on the phone and ask for a player and they sound dumb struck. At least the one I called.

Are there any Canadian Dealers who actually back the format?

threerandot

I own the Sony CE595 and am very pleased with it. It replaced a Pioneer universal player that had frequent drop outs; with the Sony I have experienced no drop outs with about 150 SACDs and 1000 RBCDs. My only complaint, which is really minor, is that there is no separate output for 2 channel. You must either split the Front L and R outputs to your preamp section's 2 channel and 6 channel direct input OR use a Toslink optical connection from the SACD player to your receiver to play RBCDs. I use the Toslink.

I think it sounds fine but don't know if it is better or worse than the 670. It's good to keep in mind that it is possible to spend lots more money without receiving any improvement in sound that can be quantified or demonstrated in blind testing. There is probably no human above age 50 who can hear up to 20 KHz and 15 KHz is really pushing it.

I bought my unit at Crutchfield over the internet. I've found them to be extremely reliable, but don't know if they ship to Canada.

Incidentally, not that it is any way relevant, my dad was from St. Stephen, NB and as a child I spent many happy weeks there in the summer. It was kind of quiet though.

Post by pgmdir July 28, 2006 (3 of 5)
I have the Sony 595 as well--- two of them in fact. I got each within the last month at Amazon at the lowest price around--- I paid 138 USD each including WA sales tax.

I've been messing with HiFi since the late 50's, and I am very critical within the restraints of budget and 63 year-old ears. the 595 not only does a fine job with my SACD's, but it is a dramatic improvement over my far more expensive DENON player with Burr-Brown DAC's. My entire red book collection just got a whole new lease on life. SACD's are better, but this sony makes CD's sound pretty great when I use its own built in DAC. My receiver, also a Denon, has the same BUrr Browns, but the inexpensice Sony blows it away. All for well under 150 USD. I prefer my SACD's in the two-channel mode most of the time, so the lack of a separate output for for two channel doesn't bother me. And I can use my DVD player for SACDs when I do want to hear MC.

Post by ggl July 30, 2006 (4 of 5)
I also have owned and used a Sony CE-595 SACD/CD player for a couple of years, and before that, briefly had a Sony ES-series SACD/CD player. While I'm not in Canada, and can't directly respond to the original post, it has prompted me to share some thoughts for the first time on this site (which I've perused to my benefit for months).

I listen to 2-channel only, 85% classical, 10% vocal jazz, 5% misc. I was initially enthused about SACD -- who wouldn't want greater resolution, clarity, etc.? (Millions of I-Pod users, I suppose. But they don't take music as seriously as you or I.)

But I have grown disenchanted. I purchase approx. 2-5 discs per month. My primary criteria for purchase of new discs are composition and performance, with sound quality in third place. I'd rather hear a stellar performance of a great composition in average sound than hear an average performance of the same piece in great sound.

Unfortunately, I've found that there are relatively few SACDs of music I'm interested in that meet my criteria. For example, I would have liked to have bought a new set of complete Sibelius symphonies in SACD, but the only available set was Jarvi's, which received lukewarm reviews. I ended up with Segerstam on CD, which is terrific. Similarly, Chailly's Mahler set is, to my taste, clearly the best set in modern sound. But only two of the 10 symphonies are in SACD -- the Third (a great recording) and the Ninth (excellent). The standout of the set, to my ears, is the Fifth, only on CD.

Another example -- Beethoven. I have Vanska's 4th & 5th symphonies. They are good -- but the 5th is minor-league compared to, say, C. Kleiber's DG 5th, even in its CD version. And the 4th is similarly eclipsed by many other performances, in my view (for example, Barenboim in modern sound, or the magnificent live Klemperer from the Sixties). I have no desire to get the new Vanska 3rd & 8th.

I now own 13 SACDs (after trading in a few) -- compared to hundreds of redbook CDs.

So when I started thinking about upgrading my equipment a few months ago, I saw little point in restricting my search to SACD players.

I compared my Sony 595 to an Arcam CD-only player 6 or 7 times its price. In an at-home blind test of CDs (facilitated by my spouse), the Arcam was clearly better, with, for example, richer-sounding woodwinds, and more space around the music as a whole. But I sensed that there was more improvement to be had.

And there was. I ended up with an Opera Audio/Consonance Droplet CD player -- about 4 times the price of the Arcam.

It is superb. The Droplet brings out details in familiar, well-recorded CDs that I had no idea were present. Not only clarity of detail, but instrumental warmth, naturalness of instrumental and vocal tone, and the "physicality" of the music are considerably improved.

On either CDs or SACDs, the Sony 595, impressive as it is for the price, simply cannot compare with the Droplet.

So why did I not buy a more expensive SACD player instead of the Droplet? Well, I could have bought one -- but to get equivalent performance on CDs, together with SACD capability, I would probably have had to spend far more -- and I'd rather put that money elsewhere (e.g., new amplifier, or spend it on vacation, or buy something for my wife). And the vast majority of the discs I listen to are CDs. (In addition, the Droplet is a strikingly attractive piece of equipment, not just another metal box.)

At least as far as 2-channel listening is concerned, SACD has been something of a disappointment to me. On my sound system, using the Sony, on most SACDs, the differences between the CD and SACD layers is marginal, not great.

But I will continue to shop for SACDs, and buy them when they are likely to satisfy me. It seems that producers and engineers generally take great care in recording SACDs, more so than is generally true for CD-only recordings (but see ECM). And that care and attention to detail comes though on the CD layers of SACD discs. My amateur's guess is that the sonic superiority of SACDs in general is due more to recording techniques (DSD, etc.) than to playback format.

So this is not a final farewell to SACDs for me. I'm keeping the Sony as a spare. And I hope that, the next time I think about upgrading my playback equipment, probably in a few years, the market will present me with SACD player choices that I'll find compelling. But given the current state of SACD -- and also given my recent reading of audiophile magazines and web sites, where the enthusiasm for high-end SACD is not great -- I'm not optimistic.

Post by pgmdir July 31, 2006 (5 of 5)
Wow, ggl, great post! I concur in every way with what you have written. My overall listening is virtually the same as yours, and I, too, prefer 2 channel. But not all of us can make that kind of investment. Our comments regarding the Sony were primarily to say to Threerandot --before you spend 8 hundred Canadian, take a look at this particular Sony. If you can spend as much as ggl, GO FOR IT! Who wouldn't? ggl, I can only imagine how good your CD's must sound now--based on the improvement over more expensive players which this Sony gave me.

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