How does Sony DVP-S9000ES compare to other Sony's?

I've had mine for 10 months and love it. At the time I was looking for a single disc SACD. It replaced a Pioneer PD 65 used as a transport feeding a CAL Alpha DAC.It was a good combo but a little dated. The Sony's built like a tank(almost 30 lbs) and performs flawlessly,however,keep in mind it's a dvd player and takes a few seconds to recognize formats and is a little slow changing tracks. I grabbed it when Tweeter was blowing them out for $799 ,so to me that seemed like the time to upgrade. I bought my father one also and he loves it too,using it 50/50 for movies and music. SACD's sound awesome,as do well mastered 16 bit recordings.Video performance is great too if you care about that also. The only thing i don't like is that the buttons are tiny and part of the display window ,but I use the remote all the time anyway so it's a small gripe.I can't compare it to Sony's other machines but if you can find a mint or perhaps new one I'd go for it.BTW i'm using it with a McIntosh C15 pre,sonic frontiers Power 1,B&W N805's and Velodyne HGS 10 sub, MIT cables. Also The Absolute sound reveiwed the new Sony dvp999es and said that the DVP 9000ES sounded better and was built better
Good luck

Hi Rich,

It is not a bad sounding unit. It does not read burned discs though. Sony used good capacitors in the audio section, and though they can sound better if you replace most of them with Black Gates, it is not a bad sounding unit as is. The only 777 Sacd player I ever heard was poorly moded and sounded pretty bad, so I cannot help you there, as the DVP would sound better than that.

Best Regards,

Lou

I have an SCD-1, an (1996?) Xa7ES, a S9000Es and also an SACD-1000. (crazy, I know! I just sold the Phillips). The 9000 is a very nice piece, esp. for the money and formats that it does. The one down side was mentioned - it doesn't read CD-Rs. It's as good on Redbook as my XA7ES, which is saying a lot since that was the top of the line CD player at the time (actually best 1-box CD-only player made by Sony). Transport and build quality are not at SCD-1/XA7ES levels, but the aesthetic is there in spades - very nice looking/feeling piece. The SCD-1 is a bit better on SACD. the 9000 also does DVD's, I've yet to use it for that but will try soon. (not DVD-A, but just regular DVD-V). I had been trying to decide to part with the Phillips or the 9000.... despite being older, not playing CD-Rs or multichannel SACDs, I still kept the 9000. The Phillips is a great player, I liked it a lot but didnt' need 4 players.... and didn't have a lot of multichannel SACD needs. The other thing the 9000 won't do is onboard decoding of Dolby Digital/DTS.... need an outboard decoder or pre/pro for that. Not an issue if using just for music however - only with watching DVDs. The 9000 also is well regarded by the 'modding' crowd - quite a few options available including tubed output stages.

Enjoy (sorry for the rambling.)
-Ed

Ed, that might be the most fair handed and unbiased assessment of Sony players I have ever read.

I had a Sony XA777es here to compare with my 9000 es and our test went pretty much like yours. I will say that the deep bass was better on the 777 and the midrange was more recessed (in a nice way) than the 9000.

So throw in the fact that video on the 9000 is excellent and you have a very good player for a fair price.

I had a fellow Audiogon member send me a CDR, and I assumed it would be limited to play in my car. For whatever reason, my 9000 accepts and plays it perfectly. The CDR blank was a common silver one typical of those sold at Comp USA. I need to find out what recording technique and software was used to burn this !

hi Albert -

Thanks - glad you think so.

Agreed the 9000 is a good player - too bad they stopped making them. I think it betters the 999ES, at least as far as build quality and aesthetics. If they just added multichannel SACD and maybe a 2nd laser for CD/CDR, it would be the ideal player in many ways (esp. for the price).

Interesting about the CD-R that plays in yours! I have heard that report from others, but could never find the 'magic combo' of disc blanks and/or recording technique that worked in mine - all efforts proved fruitless. I use a Mac, and Toast, tried burning the various disc types; black, blue, silver, Sony brand, etc. - no luck. This @ 4x burn rate... maybe @ 1x or something it might work. These were all Data CDRs not the 'audio'-specific ones. That perhaps plays a role as well?

Anyway, a good player in pretty much all regards.

-Ed