SACD or not

If you are interested in classical on SACD, jump right in. If not, do some research before you buy a player.

SACDs are more expensive than cds or hi-res streaming. You’re going to pay at least $20 for each SACD, most are $30 and up, and $50 and up for Japanese and out-of-print SACDs.

Selection is pretty limited. Mofi and AP put out a handful of SACDs a year and often those are delayed for a year to several years after an original release date is set. 

At this point, I recommend paying a few hundred dollars for a streamer and $15 to $20 a month for all the hi-res files you can stream or get a really good CD player and lots of currently very cheap CDs. You’ll have a much greater selection and sound that is as good as or better than SACD in many cases.

If the OP has a $1400 budget for the player, unless he listens mostly to classical, and there's nothing wrong with that; I think he'll have trouble putting a large collection of SACDs together.

mahler, how can you miss that in each of my posts I say that if the OP is primarily interested in classical music, he should go ahead and start a collection of SACDs?  That is implied in my second post but I think it's pretty clear that's what I'm saying.

We’re in agreement, mahler, and I buy and listen to nonclassical SACDs.  But it's hard to recommend that someone on a tight budget start a nonclassical SACD collection at this point.