Speaking as somone who just had the Sony 9000es for two years with 900.00 worth of ic's hooked up to it, the Phillips 963a sounds better on redbook out of the box with 60.00 ic's and the stock pc.
It has way better imaging, air and soundstage after 100 or so hours break in than the 9000 ever had.
As far as Sacd....no contest, the Phillips wins again with the very first song played being "Tin pan alley" by SRV.
The Sacd playback is an obvious improvement in the same areas of imaging and sounstage plus more air than the fulley broken in 9000 es with more exspensive cabling.
The sony offered a lot better build quality and was tottaly reliable for me with decent sound but lets face it, it was a first gen combo player with great build quality for the money....but technology moves forward[at least in this case] and my revelator tweets agree 100% with the sound comparison.
If you put your ear up to the transport of the 963a , you can hear a faint ticking but only on redbook and after the 1000's dependebility record, who knows how these will hold up.
This player cost less than a lot of different cabling i have purchased over the years and should be considered an absolute steal at it's list price, even though they sell for around 400.00 shipped.
After around 200 hours, i will add better ic's and pc's and hold out for the upcoming Sony with Sacd output.
