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Anyone Audition or buy the Music Hall Maverick SAC

I'm looking to spend between $1k and $4k on an SACD player. I don't especially need a universal player, but don't have an objection to one if it is excellent on Redbook and SACD. I'd like to stay at the lower end of the scale if possible. Right now, the shortish list includes the Music Hall Maverick. It got a really good TAS review a couple of months ago and is $1.5k. Other contenders are the new Marantz SA-11 or the Sony SCD-XA9000ES. I could consider an Esoteric DV50 used, as well, but if the Maverick is 90% of the DV50 it's still half the price of a used DV50. Any thoughts. What else should I consider? Right now, I have a Denon 2200 which I'm not all that happy with. Thanks.

Peter
pscialli
slipknot1
1,423 posts
 
I owned a Maverick for about six months before I sold it. It does a wonderful job on SACD, but only an average job on Redbook playback. A nice feature though was the ability to switch between upsampling and no upsampling.

It had a couple of quirks that I was not happy with. The drawer was apt to not respond when the open/close button was pushed, neccessitating powering the unit off, then on again. It also did not read several of my favorite Redbook CDs that my other players had no trouble with.

I am vinyl oriented anyway, so a first rate player is not that important to me. That being said, I have a 200.00 Sony NS500V now that I sent to SACDmods for a full set of modifications. For less than 500.00 total, I have a Redbook/2 channel SACD player that more than suits my needs.
pscialli OP
80 posts
 
Interesting. It happens that I picked up a Sony NS775 which is $129 at Amazon, just for kicks. It does a really nice job on a secondary system I have in my office. In fact, I also just received a Musical Fidelity X10 V3, the little analog buffer stage they make. I have it inline with the Sony and an Onkyo receiver and it sounds damn good. Unfortunately it has a captive lampwire as a power cord, but I'm looking forward to moving things over to my main system. Maybe something modded is the way to go.
Peter
gaudio_eek
312 posts
 
Stay on the high-end of your budget and pick-up the Alex Paychev modded Denon DVD-3910. Go to aplhifi for more information.
Stereotimes did a very favorable review of the Alex Paychev modded Philips SACD-1000. Look under archives, transports/cd players.
Good luck.
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