SACD player as transport or dedicated transport?

Pardales, the latest versions of the Exemplar 3910 do improve the transport performance. I cannot say how important this is, however. Certainly a used Denon 3910 could be had within your price range. The SONY SCD-1 would probably not be in that range, and it is slow enough to drive you to distraction.

Well Pardales, you know my answer-the XA9000ES!
Jon

The XA9000-ES is a very, very good transport. And it plays SACD to beat the band, as they say. I still run the XA9000ES into an outboard DAC because I like it better. They say that the XA9000ES upsamples redbook to DSD, but my DAC sounds better, so that must mean that the upsampling to DSD still needs some improvement, or else I've got an awesome DAC. I will say that the SACD playback is best of all.

Keep in mind that the SCD-1 and SCD-777ES are optimized for 2 channel. This is a key point. I actually wish I had one of those because I only do serious listening in 2 channel mode...

Cheers.

I do not doubt the widom of those recommending the 9000ES. Here is what my dilemma is. I owned the Exemplar Denon 2900 for about 4 months. That player helped me hear that a well recorded redbook CD can sound as good as SACD recording of the same piece of music.

Now that I have the Prima DAC I am trying to decide whether to get a dedicated transport to maximize my redbook playback or go with a SACD player to listen to the SACD's I have. I already sold all my single layer SACD's and only kept the hybrids. Since I have ripped all my CD's to a hard drive and am using iTunes, all my CD's except for about 50-60 hybrids and other remasters are up in my attic. I would be buying this player/transport soley for my remasters (hybrids or otherwise).

I am probably making this harder than it needs to be.

Anyone have any experience with the Lexicon RT-10, specifically its abilities as a transport and for SACD playback?