[ComfyCan]

Hi all,

My Denon 2200 seems to be slowly dying. It still plays SACD and DVD-A reliably, but it regularly has difficulty recognizing redbook CD's for some reason.

So, I'm in the market for a new player. Ideally, it would be a universal player like the Denon that I could use to play "everything"--relying on the internal DAC for SACD/DVD-A and using it as a transport to feed my Grace 902 DAC/Amp for redbook. If there aren't any compelling bargains in the universal camp these days, then I could continue to use the Denon for high-rez and would just need a good redbook player/transport. Budget is 1K--preferably less. From a little quick reading, it looks like the Marantz SA8001 is getting most of the love these days, although it doesn't play DVD-A.

Thoughts appreciated.

 

[ComfyCan]

Just in case someone stumbles across thread thread in a search, here's what I decided to do:

It turns out there are a lot of used Denon universal players available at very reasonable prices on E-Bay and Audiogon these days. (e.g.,2200, 2900, 3901) Presumably this is related to the victory of Blu-Ray over HD-DVD in the format wars, and the resultant release of more players that read Blu-Ray. Also, some of the older universals don't have HDMI, and I suspect home theater buffs who bought Denons a few years ago just have too many reasons to upgrade now.

However, I also found out that the problem I'm having with my 2200 is not terribly unusual in these universal players: they sometimes have a hard time "noticing" and therefore reading redbook CD's. This is annoying, to say the least. Still, if anyone has a need for a decent player to handle SACD or DVD-A "on the cheap," they could easily pick up one of these between $100-$400 depending on the model. There's also the chance, of course, that such a player would not have the problem with redbook cd's that mine has (I bought it used a few years ago and it served me very well until recently). Redbook was never the strongsuit of these players IMO anyway.

Anyway, I decided to keep my 2200 for my DVDA's and buy a new Marantz SA 8001 for redbook and SACD. The reviews are so positive and the price is so reasonable that I just couldn't resist. (I ordered mine from American Theater in the low $700's). There are also B-Stock units available elsewhere in the high $600's. Arguably, this is more CD player than I need since I have a Grace m902 Dac/Amp, but what the heck. Such is the head-fi way of life.

I look forward to comparing the performance of the DAC in the Grace vs. the DAC in the Marantz, and will report accordingly.

Happy listening.