Biggest soundstage in a CD Player ?

Lev335, whatever you say. The Marantz SA-1 is just another Marantz CD player. Levinson can only wish they can package a player like SA-1. Sure they can copy the Marantz SA-1 for about $15K. I had the Levisnon 39 in my system for 6 months from my dealer friend and the Wadia 27 set up. And having about a dozen audiophile friends listen and compare A/B the Marantz SA-1 is superior to the Levinson 39 in CD playback and another world in the SACD playback. This SA/1 is not your stock run of the mill Philips CD player. E-mail John Atkinson aka Stereophile who is a personal friend of mine.
Just compare parts between the two. You are paying atleast another $2K for the name Levinson. The Marantz SA-1 is a statement piece by the Japanese- meaning they use the best of everything and is hand crafted. They do not make money on pieces like the SA-1 because of the limited production. Marantz makes money on the volume pieces, then you can say what you said in your previous statement. I should know, I had spent +10 years as an in-house counselor for a Japanese consumer electronic firm.

If those where your thoughts why bother to ask me. If I struck a nerve Iam sorry Marantz is Marantz and sony is sony and Levinson is Levinson. Deal with it

What a snobby attitude, Lev. Sony is Sony and Marantz is Marantz on some things, but it is ludicrous to knock the Sony SCD-777ES and SCD-1 or the Marantz SA-1. These are world-class machines, bar none. Sony and Philips took a different approach to designing these players in order to make a significant impact with SACD. It worked. The Levinson player you have is excellent, no doubt about it, but I would take one of the aforementioned SACD players any day. Give SACD a good, objective listen on a broken-in player and you will wonder why you spent $3000-4000 on a conventional redbook CD player. The Sony and Marantz units are also excellent with redbook CDs. Sorry, but SACD will beat anything a Wadia, Krell, Levinson, etc., can do on redbook CD. *Stereophile* claimed that the $30,000 dCs upsampling redbook system bettered SACD, but not by much. Great if you want to spend $30,000. The Sony and Marantz SACD players are incredible performers and great values.

9fold- you are exacto-correcto sir, and I commend you.

People have to realize that without companies like Marantz and Sony, to do the R & D, the hi-end industry (especially digital) would suffer. I don't want to put down the small
US hi-end companies, but open up there boxes (CD players). It's mostly Japanese technology and repackaged for a lot more money. As of today the Marantz SA-1 & Sony SCD-1 are the best and everyone else will follow. The Accuphase 2-pc system SACD player is nice if you have $28K. Accuphase is flat out over priced and make money on there statement pieces. Marantz & Sony statement audio pieces are simply to show what they can do which is usually the best.
I say let people like Lev335 have his views. His loss is our gain. And if he read my previous forum, he may understand the gist of it.

Badwisdom. Your inquiry implies that you are seeking a number of things: 1) 'biggest/widest/grandest soundstage' (extended spatial simulation) and 2) a player that will "really immerse" you in the music (high musicality) as well as 3.) a player that will make you forget the speakers.
I do not think that these goals 1. can all be reached at the same time nor 2. be reached simply with a CD player. Take goals 1. and 2. Using airline-grade resonance damping materials, a 3 cm slate support, spikes, a sand-filled tube table, a voltage generator, an NBS Statement PC, a Shakti stone, and a number of home-made dampeners, I have greatly expanded the soundstage of my Audiomeca Mephisto II transport to levels that are not at all comparable to the unit stock out of the box. Since the distance between instruments is so wide, I find myself constantly ripped out of my immersion in the music by the speed at which musical energy shoots from one area of the soundstage to the other (particularly disturbing in non-natural multitrack recording experiments with instrument separation) and am often reminded of the speaker when an instrument is hard panned to one side of the stereo image. Although I have not tried all of the CD players you are considering, I would recommend that you experiment with power supply, cabling, isolation as a means to achieve some of your goals whatever unit you decide to buy.