Latest Score on SACD for Redbook Playback??

I own the XA777ES and have not heard the SCD-l. once broken in (a long process), my unit is so great on CDs that I can't imagine the SCD-l to be much, if any, better on redbook discs. As an SACD player it brings out the superiority of that format, but great CDs sound at least as good as less-than-great SACDs. Aside from being $l,000 cheaper, the XA777ES plays CDRs and CD-RWs, has a much faster access time, and offers multi-channel playback (which I don't use) as a bonus. It's built like a tank, has 6 parallel DACs (3 per channel on redbook discs)and seems, so far, pretty immune to the operational glitches which affected more than a few SCD-ls. To me, the choice is pretty simple. Good luck.

Sony is still making the guts of the SCD-1 available to Classe. Classe's advertising on their $12,000 player emphasizes that it is built on the SCD-1 transport. That takes hundreds of hours to break in, but when it does, wow--it is the best transport I've ever heard (I haven't A-B'd it against the CECs). I use it for CD as a transport feeding the dCS Purcell and Elgar, and it is so good that I got rid of my Levinson 37 after a brief comparison. For straight CD playback, it sounds quite respectable, but no match for the Purcell/Elgar. On SACD it still sounds terrific, and I'm not going to spend more until the software situation improves. Bottom line--since the SCD-1 is such an extraordinary transport, your money definitely is not wasted.

I'd rate it as supeior to a Naim CDSII, which I had on home demo at the same time. My Sony has already had one set of mods done by Audiocom (http://www.audiocom-uk.com), and it's currently back at Audiocom to have the Superclock 2 fitted and a bunch of prototype mods done.

The sound of the first mod is terrific, power and finesse with loads more "boogie factor" than you'd expect from an austere silver box built a japanese mass market electronics company. The mind boggles at what the second set of mods might sound like.

Interesting. I had the SCD1 and found it inferior significantly to the Naim CDSII and to the Levinson 360S it was driving. For SACD playback, it was very good. Since I own 2000 CDs I figure I'd go for the best CD playback possible. It's also possible that the rhythmic musicality and beat of the Naim meshes well with my system. I hear that the newer SACD players, particularly from Marantz are getting better and better. The catch is that as the digital parts get better, the mechanicals usually go down hill. FWIW it's worth a friend who has a heavily modified Sony (not sure which one, I have to go over to listen to it) raves about it. For looks the SCD1 can't be beat; but I wish they would have put the aluminum fascia all the way around and that 30 second delay and the fact that the display stays (comes back) on when the CD stops is annoying...