After having bought the matching amp for 212.50, the CD player is now on sale on ebay. The only problem is that bidding starts at $1199. Is it worth it?

I would be hesitant without hearing it first, as the Sony SACD players are pretty good.

I guess the only CD player in this league would be a modded 555es which would also run me a lot of moolah. The only advantage of this player would be the fact that this has a proprietary DSD out which is only compatible with the Sharp amp. The reviewers in most places spoke highly of the combination which makes this intensely tempting.

I think it will be hard to beat the Sonys(even without mods) for affordable SACD players. The cost of the 555 with mods is around 1300.00 isn't it? The 222 with mods even less.

Sorry for butting in, I had to register and to join in this discussion to prevent you from missing on what is an outstanding player. The Sharp SACD when it was released was one of the best SACD Players on the market, comparing favourably with the SCD1 and the Marantz SA-1 . It is the only one of the first generation players that had a digital link (proprietary) to a matching amp, which I see you own. The only reason I did not buy this player a while back was because I think it does not read CDRs and I was not sure the amp could drive my speakers. Since you have already made the jump and bought the amp, you could do a lot worse than buying this SACD Player. Do not forget that back in 2000/2001 that Sharp was using this player to demo their $10,000 amplifier to critical acclaim. This player sends a 1-bit datastream down to your amp. Just do it!

Thanks, Wise One! I shall quote your words to my audiophobe wife, who will seize with sheer anger at my chutzpah! Damn, I wish I could get a hold of the cash from somewhere.

I hope so too with that amp in place you will have a killer combination :cool , good luck

Yay!
My wife agrees to let me buy it. The condition is that I get rid of my existing junk i.e. Yamaha Stereo Receiver, Sony component CD Player, Bose 201 IV speakers (Rear), Fluance SM-938 (front) with Klipsch Kssc-1 (Center) and a (not fully working) ADCOM GSP 560 (preamplifier) with Monster Flat XP and AR speaker cable and a Monster Interlink 300 AV cable. How much do you think I can get for this? About $500-600 for the combo? I was planning to sell it locally at the medical school where I work, and was hoping I could get a little price advice.

Cool!

I've been tempted by that amp myself. The CDP is a bit out of my league though.

Tim,
Don't try to resist. Give in to your desire, let the Dark Side flow through your veins. Buy the amp. It can't hurt. It makes my Awful sony with only analog out sound so much smoother.
Darth Karth

(P.S.: Obi Wan didn't tell you, but I am your father, Luke.)

Hey Kartik,

Another quick register here, hehe...

If I were you I would wait on the SACD player, here's why.

First though, thank you for pointing out the amp, I bought a few of them and have been using one of them direct out of the mains with a modified Joe Grado design cable with fantastic results to my Grado 225's!

As you know, the seller bases his starting bid at a percentage of retail which was wrong for the amp. Now he has the wrong retail for the player which is almost 1k too high. Granted someone bought one for the opening bid, maybe you?, but another NIB player just sold recently for 650 or so by another seller. I strongly believe SFO's opening bid will drop drastically when those don't sell for 1195 consider they probably have 24 units, same as the amp quanity (just an educated, long time ebay'r guess). I am hoping to get at least one myself, when they come way down.... probably under 4-500 once the impatients have bought them.

Thanks again, for the heads-up

Quite a gathering of Sharp owners! I agree, I'm waiting as well. Where did you see the $650 sale price?

$635 was the winning bid on ebay, to someone that had bought an amp from SFO.... It was a different seller who had the SACD. I noticed a few others who had won an amp bidding too.

I wonder what SFO would have started the bidding on the amp if they knew the retail, 1999.95? haha....

I'm tempted to email them and tell them their MSRP is misleading and way too high on the SACD, without telling them the actual MSRP of course.

You wouldn't happen to have the link would you?