Sony DVP 9000

For a perfect description of the Sony 9000ES as Redbook and SACD, see Neil Gader's review in issue# 134 of The Absolute Sound, Feb-Mar 2002. An excerpt:

"As a stand-alone CD player, the DVP-S9000es is competent and balanced, an a par with players under $2000 I've auditioned, although it doesn't out-perform them in any single aspect....

"...It offers a neutral, slightly cool character, with perhaps a bit more upper-frequency edge and texture than I find completely natural."

to finish my post....

Where the 9000ES excels is in detail (especially bass to midrange detail) and dynamics -- the bass is really punchy. It also has decent soundstage and imaging.

Good recordings can really be hypnotic with it; bad recordings can be a little hard to listen to.

Radknee, I find that to be a very accurate description of my Sony DVP-S9000ES player.

I would third the findings of Radknee and Twl. That is exactly how I find this unit. This is a very unforgiving unit which sounds superb on many recordings, but less than great recordings are a hard to get into as much. I am looking into mods that would "tame it" just a hair. There is a bit of an edge in the upper midrange that causes me to back down the volume a notch or two on some recordings. This is really a minor fault, and might not even be noticable if you are all tubes. Tom

While I agree with Trich727, wishing I could tame my 9000 ES a bit, I also agree with all the positive comments about the performance being great.

Radknee got it right with posting the comments from Absolute Sound. That description is exactly what my player sounds like.

Only remaining point, no one has mentioned how great this baby is at delivering DVD images. That is quite a bonus considering audiophiles are filling countless threads with praise of it's sonic virtues.