Sony DVP- S9000es

I have the 9000es and think it's great on both redbook and SACD. Of course, many times it comes down to the recording quality of the particular disc, but SACD is better than CD. I think that mods may improve it but, I'm not sure it will make enough difference to justify the cost and you probably won't recoup the mod cost when you sell the unit(if you do). I recently read that Mark Levinson and others used the 9000es as a source to demo their other equipment at the CES show. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me. Also, a great DVD player as a bonus.

I think I would skip the outboard DAC and pay to have the unit modded (~$500, or so). I bet the 9000es would sound awesome modified - if you are willing to void your sony ES warranty. I would. Then you'd have killer SACD, CD, and DVD playback in one box, for less money, and only one set of analog interconnects.

I bought one for dvd and sacd, but it turned out to be a much better cd player than my rotel 971, so I sold the rotel. Allow over 500 hours of break in.

I bought one and for the money in my opinion is maybe underpriced for what it can do---cd, progressive scan,dvd, sacd,etc. and it looks cool as a bonus.

Do a search on the 9000es and you will get at least 20 threads asking the same question. fwiw I have one and am using it exclusively for DVD/v playback only.
Tim

I have one & for the bucks it is not a bad unit. I only use it for DVD & SACD playback. I tried it for cd playback & it is o.k. but if I were going to use it as an all in one player I would have it modified to get better cd playback. There are several companies that do this at a reasonable cost.I believe Modright? Modwright? is one but if yoy search this sight there are several who do this. Good luck; Larry W.

I have it and it sounds great for regular CD and SACD. I am probably 90/10 audio/video, and bought it as a DVD player only, figuring the SACD was a small bonus. As soon as I heard it, I gave up my Meta Laser 1 transport (granted 10 years old). I had been waiting for the CD wars to settle before getting a new CD player, which I thought might be coming soon, but this is a real find.
In fact, get TAS Feb/Mar. It's reviewed and highly rated for CD. Also, if you put Sony DVP-S900ES in google, you'll find a bunch of reviews which extol the sound for redbook CD's.
Oh . . . did I mention it's also a great DVD player? (LOL)