Yamaha SACD players

Another CD-S2100 owner here.  

I’m very happy with it.  Balanced design coupled with great sound and classic styling.  

Mine was only single boxed although the seller stapled reinforcement to all edges which protected the player but kind of jacks the box.  

As others have noted load time is notably slow.  Toggling through the DAC inputs is minor.  My biggest complaint is the unit starts playing after boot on power up if a CD is in the drawer on power up.  I haven’t researched if play on power up can be disabled.  

I have s2100.  Excellent player, and even greater value as I bought it refurbished.  Very organic sound, with adequate details/texture, deep sound stage, and solid base.  Balanced output is preferred, notable degradation in sound quality if you run unbalanced.  The player is designed for a balanced system.  In a fully balanced system, vocal is organic and natural.  SACD sounds great, wider/deeper/layered, and finer treble.  S2100 is on par with or better than any player I have heard under US$5000, albeit each brand has its sound signature.

If using digital out and your DAC has decent jitter reduction, all transports will be identical. Of course, that doesn’t mean buy the cheapest one possible, as the better build quality of say the CD-S1000 will lead to less issues and a longer lifespan.

agrippaThank You for sharing the comparison between Yamaha and Denon.
Happy Listening!

The Yamaha CD-S2100 sounds great and is built like a tank.  Great choice for CD and SACD both.  Then again, after auditioning it and the Denon DCD-2500NE some months ago, I ended up with the latter.  The race was very close, but for me the Denon took the biscuit.  I found it slightly more refined and yet with slightly better bass extension, not to mention that the Yamaha's display is annoyingly small.
However, if the digital inputs are something you've got use for, then the choice is very simple as the Denon has none.  Nor balanced outputs, if that's something you want or need.

I have the cd-s2100 and its been in my system a couple of years.
Its a quality piece of gear all round. Well designed, build quality is excellent, and the sound quality is fantastic.  I'm surprised there is not more buzz around these units. I think it's due to the fact that Yamaha isn't exactly a small boutique brand.

SACD sound is great as long as the recording is. Redbook CD sounds equally good. Detailed, smooth, very finely grained sound.
The only things I could knock is the disc load time, and that you have to loop through the input modes to switch inputs on the DAC.

It was fine for packing but Yamaha uses a plain old rigid styrofoam mold which can crumble/crack with hard impact if not protected by double boxing, etc.  Yamaha does double box though.  I bought my CD-S1000 used so it's packaging was worn a bit but arrived intact and without blemish.

Bill

Thanks for your reply, I am seriously considering ordering S1000, 33 lbs wow that is pretty heavy load, do you remember how well the player was packaged for shipping?

As for SACD sound quality I agree with you, some are exceptional and some are not even as good as average CD, generally speaking the difference between SACD and CD is not very large but well recorded SACD's come to their own when played on above average playback system.

I have the CD-S1000 and am more than pleased with it's smoothness, ridiculous 33 lbs build quality, and overall sound quality.  I don't think the transports are exactly the same but if the CD-S2100 is even close to the CD-1000's, then it is spectacular.

As far as SACD sound quality, I am sure you know all SACDs are not created equal.  Some discs I own sound great while others sound well, average CD quality.

Bill