I've had a Sa11S1 for a couple years now and really am very fond of it, a great player for the money. After experimenting with tweaking it, I've recently found that the Boston Audio Tuneblocks give a really remarkable upgrade to the performance. Krisjan's experience mirrors my impressions. As "mid-hall" or "upfront," I don't know. It seems a fairly neutral conduit that just lets through what ever the recording engineer's mike pattern was. As to negatives, sometimes it has a hard time getting direct access to a track deep in a disc with many tracks. Say if you want to access track 26 on an opera disc with 40 tracks, that sort of thing. I also like the fact that lacks the audio-autopsy hyped up detail that some players have.
Marantz SA-11S1
From what I am reading for around $1000 this player is excellent on Redbook and SACD. Can current and previous owners let me know your thoughts and recommendations. Do you still have it, or if not, what did you replace it with, etc....