Buy a hi-end CD player/transport now?

My experiences with SACD is the same as that young upstart Tireguy. Jcbtubes and I spent an entire evening comparing SACD to redbook CDs. We were using the top of the line Marantz vs the EMC-1. In both our opinions, the EMC-1 sounded better. Only those recordings in SACD sounded OK. IMO, buy the best CDP in your price range. Read sean's last paragraph. Hey Tireguy, for a youngin, ya sure know your stuff.

If you wait for SACD or DVD audio to take off before purchasing your next player take the money & invest it in a stock or stocks that will give you a good long term return. In the near term I don't see either format doing much. I have players that play both formats. I have not heard anything in either format that beats the sound I get from my Krell player. If you really must purchase a player now go to a good dealer & see what they have that you can take out & try at home. Compare them to what you already have. If you have to strain to notice any difference, take it back. If you do find something you like find what the retailers trade-up policy is. The better Hi-End shops will give you 100% trade up for up to a year from your purchase date. Good Luck; Larry W

Well...here's my 2 cents...I got all excited over SACD and two years ago, or whatever, popped for a SCD-1. O.K., so I overlooked that it took the better part of an evening to cue up a CD, I wanted that SACD sound I had read about.A year later I sold it due to total lack of software, unless you are totally into classical and remakes of the bangles. Now another year later and still squat for software, plus now you have multichannel SACD and DVD-A and even less than squat for music to play on that hardware. Soooo what to do...how about I bought an EMC-1 with MK 11 upgrade and holy mackeral andy, I can play the software I already own and it sounds great. Get the point? I hope someday when the electronics industry apologizes to us ,the consumer, that they don't wreck a good apology with a poor excuse.

I agree with those who have commented above re SACD and DVD-A. I recently heard SACD in a friends new Sony 777ES SACD player w/3.6 Maggies. Nice sound, but VERY limited software, and quite frankly I prefer music through my own Levinson M37 transport and M360S DAC that just plays regular ol' redbook CDs-- but I have 1000+. Well recorded CDs these days are very good, and I wanted the best front-end I could afford-- no regrets with the Levinson gear. Cheers. Craig.

I debated this issue myself last summer and went with a quality redbook-only CD player. I can play all of my existing titles and have thousands more to choose from. And the sound is outstanding! I found that many people who have high-end SACD players also use an OUTBOARD DAC to get better redbook performance out of their players so I wasn't convinced that there were any SACD players that also had redbook playback on par with the best redbook-only players. I don't see regular CD's going away anytime soon and I'm happy with my decision. Good luck!