Sony scd-1 vs Ayre C5xe

Richard Kern was the first modder to dig into & mod the unit and work with the Audiocom Superclock. He posted his early findings to the forums circa Y2K, and was greeted by an ocean of skeptics who doubted that the stock player could be improved. Sound familiar? In casual listening at shows at least, I have found DCS, Burmester, Reimyo, Zanden all lacking relative to a well-modded SCD-1.

I have about 2K in mods on my scd-1 and the player is simply stunning. The soundstage is deep and wide and the texture and timbre of the instruments in the soundstage are much improved over stock.

The Ayre C5xe while a very good player can not compete with my sony (not even close).

Chuck

I had a modified 777ES, with Kern mods on the transport board, Superclock 2 and high quality resistors and a Jerry Ozment designed tubed/transformer coupled output stage (essentially the analog section of my Audio Logic DAC). The sound was, to my ears, better than most units I have heard from dCS, Esoteric, Accuphase and even the first version of the EMM Labs gear. I replaced it with the EMM Labs CDSD/DCC2SE combination. I lost a little warmth in the midbass region (which also muddied things up just a little there) and gained a little better resolution, dynamics and deep bass reproduction. My friend who bought my 777ES loves the sound of it, he has actually cut back a lot on his analog listening because of it.

You will not get your money back from any mods, and repair work on one may be a little hard to get (I believe many of the modifiers can do repairs, though), but sonically a well-modified unit is more than competitive with what's out there in today's marketplace.

I have to agree with the quality of sound coming out of these modded sonys. And I don't want to keep beating a dead horse here. But my goodness I just can not believe the soundsatge this player throws and the micro dynamics are just stunning.

Associated electronics are cj premier 350 amp , cj premier 16lsII pre-amp and HGA cabling (DNA interconnects and X-32 Speaker cables). And I almost forgot Thiel 3.6 speakers and the sony scd-1. Thats it very simple sytem but the sound is very pleasing.

Chuck

Thanks for all the input. The Ayre is out and thinking hard re the Emm labs or the mods for the Sony.