[rmihai0]

Steve, after more then a year, are you maintaining these rankings?

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=11361&sid=1802387ac4a03f8542b02f47fdc36f8b

Here are my findings about unmoded digital stuff:

Best stock DAC: Electrocompaniet ECD1
Best stock player for CD: Arcam CD23
Best stock player for DVD-V: Arcam DV88
Best stock player for DVD-A: Pioneer DV-59AVI
Best stock player for SACD: Sony DVP NS-999ES

Of course, all these "Best of" should be understand from the perspective of a reasonable budget. I cannot affor thousands of dollars just to try a Teac DV-50.

[audioengr]

Steve, after more then a year, are you maintaining these rankings?

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=11361&sid=1802387ac4a03f8542b02f47fdc36f8b

Here are my findings about unmoded digital stuff:

Best stock DAC: Electrocompaniet ECD1
Best stock player for CD: Arcam CD23
Best stock player for DVD-V: Arcam DV88
Best stock player for DVD-A: Pioneer DV-59AVI
Best stock player for SACD: Sony DVP NS-999ES

Of course, all these "Best of" should be understand from the perspective of a reasonable budget. I cannot affor thousands of dollars just to try a Teac DV-50.

I am not familiar with the Arcam stuff.  

I just modded a 999ES.  In stock form, I thought it was decent on SACD(however imaging a bit confused), terrible on CD's. Mods improved it dramatically, but the design is just too simple and cheap to start with.  My separates CD playback is still better than SACD.

I suppose I should rate more SACD players, but I feel it is a dying format and besides, I mod a lot more DAC's and Transports than players, so I dont get to hear that many players in my system.

[rmihai0]

I also feel that SACD is a dying format. It might be posible even DVD-A and CD-ROM to die very soon as long as the HD-DVD is on the horizon.

If you didn't like DVP-NS 999ES then what do you think about Sony SCD-XA777ES. In my humble opinion, in stock form, SACD on this player beats ALL stock CD-players my a LARGE margin.

[audioengr]

I also feel that SACD is a dying format. It might be posible even DVD-A and CD-ROM to die very soon as long as the HD-DVD is on the horizon.

If you didn't like DVP-NS 999ES then what do you think about Sony SCD-XA777ES. In my humble opinion, in stock form, SACD on this player beats ALL stock CD-players my a LARGE margin.

I've modded those too.  It's a much better built player.  Unfortunately at the time, I didn't have an SACD titles to try on it.....