$1000 SACD Player

[gz76]

Are you after two channel SACD or multi-channel? Is that £1,000 or USD$1,000?

[Bizzel]

I'm after two channel since I've no equipment to take advantage of any more. I'm looking seriously at the SA8001 / 7001. I hope they're similar since I can't find the 8001 in the UK.

thisbenjamin: Thanks a lot for looking.

[vcoheda]

there is a mcintosh mcd 201 for $1925 on audiogon. i know this is out of your stated price range, but this is a seriously good price for this player. it plays sacd.

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls....lay&1192597240

[thisbenjamin]

Bizzle - another idea. This might get me shot, but it's worth putting out there. The PS3 over HDMI 1.x will output LPCM at 88, 172khz for SACD playback, I wouldn't suggest even trying the analog outs on the thing, but HDMI goes along way for decent playback for the format, and hey it plays "video games" to boot.

The slip side, is if you have a HDMI 1.3a reciever you can get the entire sacd stream uneffected to your receiver to be decoded and sent about as you like.

And other thing, it's a decent upsampling CD player as well. I'm not going to say it trashes anything dedicated, but I will say for the money it's a great little machine that's easy on the eyes and does a myrid of things rather well.

All the best on the hunt.

[HiWire]

I forgot about the PS3. That's an interesting choice. Also, I guess one of the Oppo players might also do the trick.

[Mindless]

Probably a Marantz or Denon.

[Bizzel]

Ah yes, Denon. I tracked down this model which is right on the £500/$1k mark. What do you think?

http://www.avland.co.uk/denon/dcd1500ae/dcd1500ae.htm

About the PS3...that sounds like a good idea if I can make it work (I like games as much as the next guy) but, from what I can make out, I'd need a DAC to attach the PS3 to, right?

[Redo]

Originally Posted by Bizzel

I'd need a DAC to attach the PS3 to, right?

You'd need a way of grabbing the digital stream from HDMI. At this point, I think that means you'd need a HDMI receiver.

[thisbenjamin]

Exactly you'd need to get the brand spankin new Denon 28xx (not sure model in UK and about to play Lair on my ps3 so going to be lazy and not look it up ) to recieve the HDMI (for full bandwith SACD you need HDMI 1.3a, for 88/172khz you'd need 1.1, 1.2, etc). The upside is you'd get a snazzy amp in the process, depending on how you look at it..

Now outside of that, the Denon you posted a link to is somthing I can whole-heartedly backup. I thought you where shooting for the 1k USD (500~ quid) arena or I would have suggested that earlier

Either way, new ps3 + denon HDMI 1.3a capable reciever = 1, 1.2k pounds -or- that utterly beautiful Denon you posted a link to.

I'm sure you'd enjoy the hell out of either.

[DigiPete]

Consider the Denon 3930CI, very good sound stock,

and later if you want to get into the upper stratosphere level of sound quality:

http://www.sacdmods.com/DVD3930.htm