Sony's newXA 777es multichannel SACD players are here

I just spoke with Oade Bros today and they say that 50 of the new multichannel XA777 SACD players have finally arrived on the West coast from Japan as of Friday. They expect to be able to start filling waiting list orders this Friday. They will also get more players than they have back orders, so there's still a chance to grab one at the price they offered to preorders ($2000). I don't work for Oade -- I jsut think they offer good pricing and they get stuff before anyone else.

After burn-in, I will A/B this player against my SCD-1 and report on how the multichannel SACD's sound. A good 6 channel preamp is next on the list.

I am slowly warming up to multichannel, as I enjoy my DVD-A collection now that I have my Aranovs running the front channel. Tubes doing 24/96 just smooths things out enough and the multichannel "effect" has the benefit of expanding the soundstage. Some DVD-A discs sound bad with instruments "split" between front and rear channels but some discs are quite good. (The best multichannel disc I have expereinced so far is the Alan Parsons Project DVD-A. It will be interesting to compare the multichannel SACD to DVD-A.) --Lorne