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New DAC or New Player??

My Sony DVP-S9000ES will not play hybrid SACD discs in SACD mode anymore, only the CD layer. It plays everything else fine including SACD only discs. Since almost all SACDs are dual layered today the player effectively does not play SACD anymore. My question is should I give up on SACD and improve my Red Book playback by adding on a Benchmark DAC-1, or would I be better off dumping the Sony and replacing it with a McCormack UDP1, or the Marantz DV9500 universal players?
koestner

Showing 1 response by rbstehno

rbstehno
1,505 posts
 
i was in the same boat as you a couple of months ago. i have a good working sony 9000es and use it mainly for cd and sacd playback. i did not like the sound that it was providing from cd playback. sacd playback is very good though. i looked into getting it modified (to tubes). i also look at purchasing a cd only player. in the end, i didn't want to give up sacd playback, and i do like the option of using it as a dvd player. I ended up buying a used $3500 Audio Research DAC for less than a $1000 for cd playback and couldn't be happier.
good luck.
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