Small SACD Player?

[bizkid]

Its over 200$ but Denon released this baby in Japan:

http://www.denon.co.jp/products2/dcdcx3a.html

Im really really tempted to get it for my bedroom rig

Streetprice is still a hefty 110.000 Yen

 

[fkclo]

I think a main reason why a small SACD is not yet available in the market is the technical challenges it has to address. SACD spins at a much higher speed than normal CD. Which means (a) it requires a more powerful drive mechanism, (b) a beefier power supply, (c) a stronger structure to deal with the vibration issues etc. in order to ensure good signal pickup. This would mean it can get too small for the time being. A portable SACD will be a good proposition but again one has to sort out the power requirement first.

But the promise is there. The portable DVD player is now seeing price drop in the last 18 months and somehow it share a lot of the challenges of a SACD player (this also explains when most recent DVD player can also play SACD, although audio performance is not top notch for most products). The remaining questionn is whether the manufacturers see sufficient market potential to justify the investment to develop such a product.

Just my 2 cents.
F. Lo

 

[fkclo]

This is nice looking but at 12" W x 12" D and 3" high this is not really small. But still a good step forward. But whether this will deliver the promise of SACD audio is another matter.

FWIW.
F. Lo
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Quote:

Originally Posted by bizkid /img/forum/go_quote.gif Its over 200$ but Denon released this baby in Japan: http://www.denon.co.jp/products2/dcdcx3a.html Im really really tempted to get it for my bedroom rig Streetprice is still a hefty 110.000 Yen

 

[HiWire]

No, it can't be the size and power requirements. The CD burners and DVD players in our computers are also small and fast... 52X CD and 18X DVD is a lot of RPMs... especially in a noise and vibration-sensitive environment like a computer. I think the problem is marketing... a lot of companies are still trying to perfect CD playback and SACD simply presents an entirely new, unwelcome set of technical and licensing challenges for a niche market. I'm not sure if there are any small DVD-A players either.

I've been discussing it for a while though... maybe Tyll at Headroom would be willing to take a crack at it, since he's just finished a world-beating DAC design. I'm not sure how a DAC would be adapted for DSD or DVD-Audio. He could buy a transport mechanism from the major players (e.g. Sony, Phillips, Pioneer, etc.) and design a new power supply and enclosure. How about it, Tyll?

 

[slwiser]

This unit apparently does not send its SACD signal out in anything other than analog. No digital, only on the CD side is this available.

To see the table go to the bottom and look at this info.

http://translate.google.com/translat...language_tools

 

[HiWire]

Found this one (Marantz SA7001) on AudioCubes.com... it's surprisingly inexpensive, too, at $649 USD

http://www.audiocubes.com/category/H...CD_Player.html

Now I am tempted...

 

[Meyvn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by slwiser /img/forum/go_quote.gif This unit apparently does not send its SACD signal out in anything other than analog. No digital, only on the CD side is this available. To see the table go to the bottom and look at this info. http://translate.google.com/translat...language_tools

All SACD players are like that for now; they can't output digitally in SACD format. They just downgrade it to 44.1 kHz. It's because of DRM issues if I recall. The only ones that output digitally do so encrypted and by HDMI, so very very few things can decode them.

 

[bizkid]

There isnt that much of a difference between SACD Players (playing back SACDs!), even in hifi magazines the expensive players are rated close or the same for SACD playback together with the sub $1000 ones, the only thing that makes the expensive ones better is beter redbook playpack.
Also i remember reading an interview with one of the emm labs engineers who said that the main benefit of SACD is that it will sound good without expensive voodoo applied, on both the consumer and more importantly the producers side.