Anyone has heard the Sony SACD Player

Sometimes a separate active linestage is better, BUT NOT IN THE CASE OF THE CD50...

Closest thing to a mike feed I have heard period. In the world of $10k transports, 5K for a dual media player is not bad. The unit plays cd's as well as a Wadia 860, and SACD's... there is no contest. Even my non-audiophile friends immediately hear a vast difference between CD and SACD. I have used the unit with the Metronome C1V dac, I was auditioning it to see if I wanted to augment the SCD1's cd playback. The result was that it was not necessary, the unit performed as well as the dac and in some cases better due to the filters. I suggest you read all these entries, and borrow a unit from your dealer. Listen to the Charlotte Church SACD and then listen to the CD on any player you care to choose Sondek, Wadia...doesn't matter. SACD is a gestalt, period. Let your own ears be the judge. Also regardless of people stating that line stages are taboo, sometimes a superlative line stage is better that the inferior line stages included in a one box solution. I know for a fact that the Wadia gear sounds it absolute best with a great active line stage tube or SS. Thanks, Mike

Not mediocre, just not better than mine. AND MINE COSTS LESS, and is vastly more hi-rez/more like analog than anything requiring a linestage, including the SCD-1, 850, or 508.24.

anyone that says the scd-1 is only a mediocre cd played hasn't heard it in a good system used as a transport with a good outboard dac. i have had mine for 2 months and the sound inproves every week. remember..it does take awhile to break in and sound its best. every source sounds different with different cables.don't label the player an average component unless you have heard it with many different cables. mine changed significantly when i went from cardas golden cross's to harmonic tech prosilway II for interconnects ( rca's for the cd and balanced for the sacd) and audio tekne speaker cables, biwired. it now sounds as good as any $7500 cd player out there...i have had meridian 508.24 and metronome t20 transport and it's better then both.good power cords also help. i doubt anyone's scd-1 has reached the 300-400 hrs needed to truly see how good it will be.

If you think a Rotel CD player sounds great, you should hear a Resolution Audio CD50, which also decodes HDCD (although there's nothing "new" about HDCD, it's been around for nearly a decade). If the SACD format actually gets embraced by the music industry, we'll all be buying SACD's and players. I'm just not excited about it right now, and the SACD PROCESS CERTAINLY DOES NOTHING FOR 16/44.1 CD's, especially not like my CD player does. AND ABOUT VINYL: Like I've said before, digital will be around a while (whatever form it takes), SO MY MONEY IS GOING INTO VINYL. Everybody who's not doing this is REALLY missing out! Cartridges are etter than they've ever been, and the reissues are FANTASTIC! I don't see many "Living Stereo" and "Living Presence" titles coming out in SACD, whereas NEARLY ALL OF THE RCA's have been reissued on vinyl by Classic Records. AND, IT'S SO FUN TO DO THE "RITUAL" of LP playback...

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I have found that it always comes down the recording quality being far, far more important than the digital technology being used. The Sony SACD did sound better than most players to me, but I have plenty of 16/44 recordings that absolutely blow away the sound of the new 24/96 recordings available so far.

What´s the price for the new SACD players and SACD disks? Thanks, Hasse

To be perfectly honest, I was not all that impressed with the new SACD format. I mean, like Spicy said, there was a noticeable difference, but not THAT noticeable to justify the cost. I've yet to hear anything that melts my room with warmth and "live" -ness like a good recording on vinyl does. For those not willing (as I once was) to cross back in time into the world of vinyl, I would recommend purchasing one of Rotel's single-disk CD Players utilizing the new HDCD decoding. Much cheaper in price as compared to the Sony SACD Player.

This player when hooked up to top quality gear produces the closest thing to real I've ever heard. If this doesn''t revolutionize hi end audio nothing will. There ae cheaper players coming soon. Hopefully SACD will in fact become a standard. There is real danger it will go the route of Beta for those of you old enuf to remember that.

Yes. Very relaxed natural sound more like live music. But certainly not as dramatic difference as between cassette and cd was. Better than cd but not worth 5000.00. Honestly I must say that I have heard some cd players that were far behind the sony. My audio dealer who has been in the business 30 years felt the same.

When playing SACD disks it is amaizing. As a CD player, it not as good as the competition. But until SACD disks are plenty and cheap, who cares? I only bought a CD player when I could no longer buy the LPs I wanted.