SONY S9000ES is pretty sensitive to power cable (& therefore power conditioning). You may try different cables with it. Did not own THETA, many think they are good tranports. As a CD player, S9000ES can't compete with those top rated ones. As a SACD player, Only better SACD players or >6K range CD players can beat it.
I will not count one or two specific CD/SACD to do comparison for hi-fi gears. You need to live with them for a few months, rotating enough CD's or LP's on them. During that time, you might find easy tweak to improve them for fair comparison. So my trying period is usually two months at least. For example, ARC DAC5 did not impress me in the beginning. Then, I found canare digital cable with BNC connector feeding to DAC5's input(also BNC), that improve sound significantly and BNC/RCA adaptor is the cause of sound degradation. Another example, I leveled Accuphase transport and add isolation foot after first month, which greatly improve the sound. I have been living with S9000ES for >1 year now. Try other transport/DAC from ML, ARC, Accuphase, P1/P3... (either bought or borrow). For redbook, of course S9000ES is not as good as others. But compare SACD with CD playback. I would say those redbook gears are getting close but not better. Never hear ARCAM, can't comment. If it is that good, why it did not kill all the giants 7 years ago.
I will not count one or two specific CD/SACD to do comparison for hi-fi gears. You need to live with them for a few months, rotating enough CD's or LP's on them. During that time, you might find easy tweak to improve them for fair comparison. So my trying period is usually two months at least. For example, ARC DAC5 did not impress me in the beginning. Then, I found canare digital cable with BNC connector feeding to DAC5's input(also BNC), that improve sound significantly and BNC/RCA adaptor is the cause of sound degradation. Another example, I leveled Accuphase transport and add isolation foot after first month, which greatly improve the sound. I have been living with S9000ES for >1 year now. Try other transport/DAC from ML, ARC, Accuphase, P1/P3... (either bought or borrow). For redbook, of course S9000ES is not as good as others. But compare SACD with CD playback. I would say those redbook gears are getting close but not better. Never hear ARCAM, can't comment. If it is that good, why it did not kill all the giants 7 years ago.