When I had my SA-8004, it had that treble hardness for the 2 years I owned it. The player probably had at least 2000 hours on it and that treble harshness never went away. I sold it and bought an Esoteric instead. There was no break in time with the Esoteric as it sounded incredible right out of the box and still sounds the same incredible to this day.
When I had the SA-8004 I kept asking myself "how did this player get all those rave reviews". I have found that if I am not enamored with the sound on first listen, I will never like it.