How can I improve my Sony SCD-777ES for red book


Dear Audiophiles,
I have a Sony SCD777ES and would like to improve on the redbook cd playback but not sure which route to take. Here are my options based on research thus far:
1) Sell it for about $1400.00 and buy a new CD/SACD player for about $3500.00 in the used market.

2) Send the unit in for modifications.

3) Buy a nice DAC for redbook. With is option, can I buy a nice DAC for around 2.5K ? What are your recommendations?

Your help is greatly appreciated.
anthuan

Showing 1 response by nrchy

I just got mine back from Audiomod. I was asking the same question recently, and came to the conclusion investing in the mods would be far more cost effective than selling and buying something new. If I sold it for $1200 and put an addition $850 (which was the cost of the superclock and the blackgate caps) into the mix, that would give me $2050 for something new. There isn't anything really special in that range. Nothing, anyway that I think is a big jump over the Sony.

The stock SCD 777es is a pretty good unit, and a good foundation on which a person can build. I have had the modded unit running for about 36 hours now. Tonally it has a long way to go, but Richard Kern said it would take about 400 hours to fully break-in.

The first thing I noticed when I got it up and running is that it did not sound as 'digital' as it had. As a word of warning, I greatly prefer vinyl to digital.

There are several people who have asked the same question here, and who ended up using Audiomod. Check out the thread done by Jadem6. He has an SCD 1, which is similar to the original 777, not the bastardized second generation 777!

If you have specific questions about my experience, send me a letter, and I will try to answer them...