I need a new cd player for @ 700.00

eric the red · « **on:** 28 Jan 2003, 11:15 pm »

I bought a Philips SACD 1000 and cannot convince myself that I need to start all over again buying SACDs of my favorite music as the sonic differences that I am hearing between redbook and SACD aren't all that big IMO. Plus there are about 500 jazz cds that I still want to buy that will never make it to the SACD format. Any suggestions on a transport/DAC combo or one box cdp in the 700.00 price range new or used

KevinW · « **Reply #1 on:** 28 Jan 2003, 11:33 pm »

Why not spend $800 on a modwright tube upgrade to your SACD1000? Hard to imagine you could get better sound for the money. BTW, my 1000 sounds better in redbook than my modwright p3a dac.

Marbles · « **Reply #2 on:** 28 Jan 2003, 11:35 pm »

Take your Philips SACD down to see your neighbor. With his mods you should have a very good CD player.

You could also take a chance on another Jolida.

Unfortunately the Philips only has an optical digital out and the ART DIO only takes a coax digital in, otherwise I would recommend just getting a Bolder Modded DI/O.

jackman · « **Reply #3 on:** 28 Jan 2003, 11:39 pm »

ETR, I'll give my ten cents...It depends on your system. I was going to sell my modded DIO because it was not a good match for the rest of my system, however I am now very happy I didn't sell it. I liked it at first but attributed some negative attributes to the DIO after extended listening. I tested an Audionote tube DAC and liked it but concluded that it did not sound as good (again, on my particular system) on certain types of music (rock, hard driving up-tempo stuff) as it did on acoustic jazz, which it did very well.

I changed other parts of my system to address the shortcomings and found that the DIO is now ideal as part of my digital front end. The CAL Delta is also good enough for me at the present. You could have Wayne mod you a DIO for 265+the cost of the unit (I think they are on sale for 100)+the CAL transport (should be less than 300). With shipping, you should be under 700. If your system could use a little warmth or is a little bright, you may want to sub the Scott Nixon DAC. Or wait until the big shootout out east.

If the DIO works out, you could upgrade to Mensa at a later time for about 150 *plus shipping. I also like the Modwright Perpetual gear, the P3A. I'll be doing a bit of a comparison between this unit and the DIO this weekend at Audiojerry's. Jerry has a beautiful setup and has been gracious enough to put up with me for a day on Saturday or Sunday *still working that out. We will also be doing a comparison of some Van Alstine Fetvalve gear I picked up, Odyssey Mono's, and AR giant tube amp. Jerry's room is set up very well (I'm jealous!) and is perfect for evaluating gear. He also has some vinyl which I hope to plug into the equasion. Either way, it will be a fun couple hours of listening to music.

I'm getting some wires from Wayne, the new M80 speaker cables. Don't know if they will be here by the weekend but if they are, I'll bring them along for the ride. Jerry has some cool Zu cables which should make for a great evaluation. The only problem is we may need very long lengths and I'm not sure how long the Bolder stuff will be. I have high hopes for the Bolder cables based on my previous experience with Wayne's stuff!

Adios,
Jack

PS: Marbles, the SACD1000 does not have a digital out. You can't use it with any outboard DAC, not even one with a toslink. The digital out only works with DTS...I returned mine after a week. It was not even close to the modded P3A or the modded DIO on Redbook. On SACD? I don't know or care. I have too many cd's to give up the ghost...

OBF · « **Reply #4 on:** 29 Jan 2003, 12:01 am »

E.T.R.,

Does that mean by inference you don't think the Philips is very good with Redbook? I've thought about getting one, or maybe a DV-45, but I'd probably only do it if I could afford mods to either one.

Ron D · « **Reply #5 on:** 29 Jan 2003, 12:08 am »

Take a jaunt down to Dan Wright's location and see if he has a 1000 in for mods before you make the final decision to sell. I have both a stock 1000 and a modded 333ES and I'd sure like to scrounge up the funds to have the Philips modded as I can attest that the 333ES is another animal entirely since the mods.

Marbles · « **Reply #6 on:** 29 Jan 2003, 12:09 am »

Quote from: KevinW

Why not spend $800 on a modwright tube upgrade to your SACD1000? Hard to imagine you could get better sound for the money. BTW, my 1000 sounds better in redbook than my modwright p3a dac.

Good suggestion!

jackman · « **Reply #7 on:** 29 Jan 2003, 12:37 am »

Where are the reviews for the modded SACD1000??? I was going to get mine modded but decided to get rid of it because it spooked me to have a $1,250 machine with moving parts, several of which are unreplaceable...with NO warranty. That's what put it over the top...that and the fact that there are so few reviews on the 1000. I know the DIO sounds great and the MENSA looks like it has reached a new level.

This could all change, however, if the modded SACD1000 lives up to the hype! The stock version didn't impress me on Redbook.

Jman

Hantra · « **Reply #8 on:** 29 Jan 2003, 12:44 am »

For $600, I have heard nothing in my life that competes with the Scott Nixon DAC, and the Sony DVP-7700S. Spend the extra $100 on a decent digital cable.

Jitter is a non-concern with the Nixon DAC. When you do oversampling, your window for jitter tolerance expands ten-fold.

Like Jack said, wait until Sunday when we do the shootout. We'll all report back. . .

B

Beezer · « **Reply #9 on:** 29 Jan 2003, 12:54 am »

How long have you had your SACD1000? Mine took a solid 10 days of constant power to really start opening up. I did not like it out of the box, but am now getting pretty good sound from it. I don't miss my Cal Delta-smART DIO-bybee PS at all. My analog rig has become my sytem reference and the Phillips comes a lot closer to it than the DIO in my system. Of course, I also like not having to futz around with synching the DIO either and really enjoy the few SACDs I've bought to date. I'm sure a lot of it is system synergy though. Plenty of people on this board love their modded DIOs.

That said, I'm sending it to Stan Warren for mods. He does his basic mods for $300 (rebuilds the power supply and output stage) and will also replace a bunch of caps for free if you buy the parts. I spent an extra $135 on Blackgates. I'm also considering have him install some Bybees in it. I figure I'll be out about $1k when I'm done.

Let us know what you decide to do.

Beez

ehider · « **Reply #10 on:** 29 Jan 2003, 01:08 am »

I'm wondering why nobody here has mentioned the Warren modded version of the SACD 1000. He is charging less than half price for his mods, and I personally think that Stan's mods may sound even better!

There are four hard core audiophiles that I know of who have Warren's modded 1000's and it beat everything they could throw at it! Including all of the differnent various MSB D/A's (including the Platinum) and some of these D/A's had $1000+ mods too!.

Here's a listing of the other DACs and players that the modded SACD beat: DIO (heavily modded), Pioneer 434 heavily modded, Rega Planet, Sony 9000ES, Krell KAV 250, Sony XA7ES, Levinson 39, Accuphase DP-65, EVS Millenium.

eric the red · « **Reply #11 on:** 29 Jan 2003, 01:15 am »

Stan Warren will not answer his phone

I live about a mile from him-maybe I'll go knock on his door

randytsuch · « **Reply #12 on:** 29 Jan 2003, 01:32 am »

Hey guys,
Missed this thread before, but I'll throw in my 2 cents.

Stan does great work, my 1000 sounds really good now (other pieces of my system are keeping it from reaching it's potential). I also think Stan is a bargain, for what he does. But he is hard to get a hold of (If I lived a mile away, I would go knock on his door), and he does take a long time to finish a job. He has a big backlog of 1000's since the tweeter sale, so I would guess at least 3-4 months to get a 1000 out of him. I'm still waiting for my Adcom, which I think I sent in July, or something like that.

Beezer, I thought you were going with Modwright? Did you change your mind?

Randy

OBF · « **Reply #13 on:** 29 Jan 2003, 01:50 am »

Stan doesn't work on the Pioneers does he? I've heard the 45 and 47 have very solid transports but need work on the power supply and outputs. Sounds like the same thing Stan does with the Philips. The DV-45 is fairly cheap and more versatile than the 1000, but Modwright may never be done with his mods and EVS charges a lot more than Stan does.

randytsuch · « **Reply #14 on:** 29 Jan 2003, 02:38 am »

One very cool thing about Stan is he will mod anything, and not charge you for the research. I sent him the first SACD 1000, and he only charged me for the mod labor, not for any of his research time. At the time, he had no idea if he would ever see another 1000.

Randy

Beezer · « **Reply #15 on:** 29 Jan 2003, 03:00 am »

I decided to go with Stan based on his reputation and cost. I just couldn't justify modwright at 2X the price. I guess a tube in the output might be nice, but not necessarily any better. Perhaps some comparison reviews will come out and change my mind before I send mine in, but until then, Stan's the man!!

Beez

eric the red · « **Reply #16 on:** 29 Jan 2003, 03:26 am »

I guess I'll give Stan a try and get my SACD 1000 modded as it would be kind of stupid to buy a 700.00 cdp when I can have a modded SACD 1000 for about 800.00 total cost-thanks for the input all

Jay S · « **Reply #17 on:** 29 Jan 2003, 03:37 am »

It would be great if Stan could mod a Pioneer DV45a or 47Ai. I respect Ric's work but $600 is a bit high for me, especially since I'd have to ship the player to Hong Kong (figure at least $150 in shipping). I may even have to ship the HK version to him as I'd want a 220v player (especially the stores sell them hacked to play dvds from all regions).

By the way, I don't think a tube is essential for good sound. We compared my MENSA DI/O with Guan's highly modified pencil tube dac, and they were equally musical (will confirm after break in is complete). The MENSA is much smoother than the smART DI/O, and to me the upgrade is an extra $150 very well spent.

audioengr · « **Reply #18 on:** 29 Jan 2003, 05:13 am »

I agree on the Sony DVP-S9000ES. An awesome player. Even its replacement, the 999 did not rate as well sonically. We used one in our Empirical Audio room at CES this year.

I would highly recommend getting the mods by Dan Wright at:
Modwright:
http://www.modwright.com/

TheChairGuy · « **Reply #19 on:** 29 Jan 2003, 02:35 pm »

Eric,

The SACD1000 seems to be a doozy, ready for upgrading by one or more willing techs out there (I'm a big Stan Warren fan, too, as he did marvels with an old Superphon Pre not long ago - for cheap!).

Not mentioned here in that $700.00 slot is the newest Ah! Tjoeb with 192k upsampler. There was a review on Harmonic Discord not long ago on it and it seemed quite interesting for this price bracket.

But ask yourself, do you want another 'box' around the house? You already shelled out good money for the Phillips and fellow audiophiles say it's waaay upgradeable; seems to me the wisest solution to your woes.

Ain't this all fun???