Before I say anymore about my own system, thought I'd give a little history about my daliance with SACD.
First heard one in the Sony building in Ginza back in 2000. Spent half a day in their rather large shop, just playing with various bits of kit. Highlight was their auditorium with a huge system and fronted by what was clearly a rather expensive SACD player. No idea what any of it was, but it was definitely NOT the sort of stuff you'd find in Tottenham court road. Either way, it was clearly a quiet day, and I got to spend nearly an hour in there all on my own, just meadering through a few tracks. Came across very well, but was hard to really understand how good because of unfamiliarity with the rest of the system.
In 2003, borrowed a £400 Marantz SACD capable DVD player for a weekend. Compared it to my Naim CD5i. The Naim walked all over it on CD, but with the same track being played on the SACD player and the Marantz was IMO roughly on par with the Naim, but did so at half the cost. I was quite impressed, but also very conscious about the lack of SACDs and that I'd probably want to buy a better player than the Marantz, and at the time, funds were better spent elsewhere in my system.
Bought a Pioneer 575a for DVD playback in 2004, which happened to have SACD. Unfortunately it was reliant upon it's own DACs/PSU/analogue output sections, and even with an SACD disk was still miles adrift from the CDP I was using by then.
Fast forward to 2012, and a new opportunity has arrisen. Some BD players now incorporate SACD playback and can output DSD converted to LPCM via HDMI. Sure, it IS being converted, but does mean that I can now rely on the decoding by my processor as against some cheap and nasty single box BD solution. In short, all I needed was a BD player to act as an SACD transport. Step forward last years Pioneer BDP140, as part of being discontinued and sold off at nearly 2/3rds discount by a well known seller of CA products.
Tested it in store to ensure no SACD hybrid incompatibility issues (some forums mention this on early firmware versions of the player). All seemed fine, so coughed up the dosh and took it home. Very easy to setup, plugged in the network cable and had the latest firmware onboard within 10 mins of power up.
And how does it sound? Bloody good with SACD. Basically all the good bits of 24 bit recordings that I've bought over the last couple of years, i.e. smoother more analogue mid range, massively better "placement" of instruments and vocals, lower background noise and really well controlled and natural bass. Sure, means I'll need to buy some discs, but there's now a back catalogue of around 8000 disks (shame most are classical, but you can't win them all).
For £50, a real no brainer.
Might also be able to give my PS3 a rest on BD/DVD playback as an added bonus.
First heard one in the Sony building in Ginza back in 2000. Spent half a day in their rather large shop, just playing with various bits of kit. Highlight was their auditorium with a huge system and fronted by what was clearly a rather expensive SACD player. No idea what any of it was, but it was definitely NOT the sort of stuff you'd find in Tottenham court road. Either way, it was clearly a quiet day, and I got to spend nearly an hour in there all on my own, just meadering through a few tracks. Came across very well, but was hard to really understand how good because of unfamiliarity with the rest of the system.
In 2003, borrowed a £400 Marantz SACD capable DVD player for a weekend. Compared it to my Naim CD5i. The Naim walked all over it on CD, but with the same track being played on the SACD player and the Marantz was IMO roughly on par with the Naim, but did so at half the cost. I was quite impressed, but also very conscious about the lack of SACDs and that I'd probably want to buy a better player than the Marantz, and at the time, funds were better spent elsewhere in my system.
Bought a Pioneer 575a for DVD playback in 2004, which happened to have SACD. Unfortunately it was reliant upon it's own DACs/PSU/analogue output sections, and even with an SACD disk was still miles adrift from the CDP I was using by then.
Fast forward to 2012, and a new opportunity has arrisen. Some BD players now incorporate SACD playback and can output DSD converted to LPCM via HDMI. Sure, it IS being converted, but does mean that I can now rely on the decoding by my processor as against some cheap and nasty single box BD solution. In short, all I needed was a BD player to act as an SACD transport. Step forward last years Pioneer BDP140, as part of being discontinued and sold off at nearly 2/3rds discount by a well known seller of CA products.
Tested it in store to ensure no SACD hybrid incompatibility issues (some forums mention this on early firmware versions of the player). All seemed fine, so coughed up the dosh and took it home. Very easy to setup, plugged in the network cable and had the latest firmware onboard within 10 mins of power up.
And how does it sound? Bloody good with SACD. Basically all the good bits of 24 bit recordings that I've bought over the last couple of years, i.e. smoother more analogue mid range, massively better "placement" of instruments and vocals, lower background noise and really well controlled and natural bass. Sure, means I'll need to buy some discs, but there's now a back catalogue of around 8000 disks (shame most are classical, but you can't win them all).
For £50, a real no brainer.
Might also be able to give my PS3 a rest on BD/DVD playback as an added bonus.
