One to watch might be the new Teac (DV-50?). Lindemann: nice, overpriced though. Some of the best players continue to be the 1st and 2nd generation ones: SCD-1 (and 777ES) at the top of the heap I think, S9000ES also very good, among others. Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista is "officially sold out" from the factory, according to the latest hyperbole from MF. Supposedly availability in the US will continue through September or so. Big Yawn... overpriced, over hyped player. Good sound, - yeah, not bad, but not 2-3x better than SCD-1. Esp. not once you start modding SCD-1 probably (or output to a Meitner DAC). More hybrid plants are coming on line now, to meet demand. Initially there was only one or two I think. The new Sony XA9000ES is their new flagship, yet to be released. Notable addition is encrypted firewire connection to the matching amp, so no preamp or analog connection between the two is needed. Looks like a nice player but not back up to the build level of SCD-1. MuFi does not have a non-trivista SACD player in the works that I have heard of, their next products will be a pair of monoblocks and preamp, called kW and kWP... something silly like 1000w per channel, 200 amps (!? WTF?) of current capability. Overbuilt looking, separate power supply box. Sort of looks like their answer to Krell/Halcro/etc. $10-15k or so price tag I think for the amps. Preamp similar but not sure of the details or price... under 10k I think but still overpriced.
whatever.. more fodder for stereophool.
-Ed
whatever.. more fodder for stereophool.
-Ed