I see the parallel to the earlier years of CD players, until the high-end companies got into the arena. There was a very large market for mods/kludges of the stock Philips/Magnavox players until the late 80s--Scott Nixon got his start then--because the available CD players were generally mass-market machines from Sony, Denon, Philips/Magnavox and the like, hardly high-end machines for the most part. Eventually companies like Mission, Meitner, Krell, Madrigal, Theta, Wadia and others felt that the technology was going to take hold and it would be worth putting their R&D dollars into the area. We're sort of at that stage now, as some of the high end companies are starting to develop their own players, but still there are a lot of mass-market players out there at cheap prices which can be brought up to a very good level of performance, comparable with much higher-priced players on redbook, for a bargain price, with SACD as a throw-in, as you will. SACD is not a bust without the modifications, but it, just as redbook, benefits enormously from better power supplies and analog stages.
What is the SACD Mod business all about?
I am interested in SACD and have been researching the many posts here on Audiogon. There is a lot of ink on these companies that offer mods to the basic SACD players. Some of the mods cost as much as the players. I guess I am bothered by the notion that I need to buy a SACD player then have it modded to get the best sound. Something just seems wrong with that picture. I mean do you buy a new CAT preamp and then send it off for mods. If the format has to be modded to sound good maybe I should just stick with cds. Any thoughts?