I’m a Huge fan of anything that Dan of ModWright has Re-engineered! From my personal experience, I have not found anything that even come close to the performance of MW Sony 5400 and now the MW Marantz SA8005 Tube CD Players. I have compared my player to Ayon CD2 and Rega CD Players and a slew of Dacs to include EE, Bryston, Berkeley and Lampizator Lvl 4; All were inferior in sound quality and I noticed a drastic reduction in sound-stage, imaging and impact plus you can put that $500+ dollar toward the cost of the player verses a digital cable.
My player is primarily a disc spinner and at some point I may use this for a few Hi-Rez rips to experience what everyone is raving about. It’s built like a tank, has an exceptional drawer mechanism and designed for digital/CD playback… The sound of this player is Fantastic, life-like image size, wide/high sound-stage and a very DEEP sound-stage like nothing I’ve heard before; it actually draws you into the recording venue with layers of depth, ambiance and subtle cues that’s so realistic. Even basic CDs sound fantastic and SACD is OFF the chart.
I will give you the analogy of the differences between the Sony and Marantz that I discovered when I replaced my Avalon Ascendants with Acoustic Zen Crescendo Loudspeakers; the Avalon’s were champions at portraying realistic images within the soundstage in row 2 but Acoustic Zen was even better at portraying palpable imaging/depth and at the same time lit up every corner of the sound-stage, allowing subtle cues, ambiance and detail to emerge effortlessly and the ability to put
the listener in row 4…
This MW SA8005 player will give you Great sound and offer one the ability to dip into Hi-Rez streaming without eliminating those shiny discs that we’ve grown to love due to simplicity. This unit is here to STAY until Dan’s next discovery and I’m only halfway through the burn-in process…
I enthusiastically and Highly Recommend MW SA8005 Tube CD player!
Kudos to Dan and his Team for an Outstanding Job on this project!
Wig