Is it worth spending $10k on CD-only player today?

Well I asked that same question about 4 years ago and decided with some advice from my dealer to go with CD only.

Here it is 4 years later and SACD is still struggling to get shelf space. There is still no certainty about it. There are still few titles outside of classical ones that I'd even be interested in listening to and most of those are on LP.

Where is the marketing for SACD. I hear nothing about it. I don't see any push by Sony to market or hype it up. Most of my non-audiophile friends have never heard of it. All this doesn't give me confidence in its future. Not to mention that a newer, better format may be in the works before SACD ever gains ground on redbook.

I personaly would put the money into a good TT. But I would feel confident that CD will be around for a long time as well.

IMHO

Rob

Not to me, but maybe you have more disposable income. I would not buy any CDP that did not also allow for SACD playback anymore.

If audiophiles do not support higher resolution playback formats, they will not succeed. I got SACD as a whim and have be plesantly surprised by how much better it sounds than redbook.

You could spend a lot less money and get better sound by venturing into hi-rez. It doesn't make a lot of sense to limit yourself when it comes to sound quality. Redbook deserves to go the way of the dinosaur. There are many better formats. Some preceeded CD some hopefully will succeed it!

If you would go to $14k, many would say the Reimyo cd player is worth it.

I don't think so. If and when the price of SACD's come down regular CDs may be replaced rapidly. Of course no one knows when this will happen or even if the regular CD will be replaced.

Personally I would look at the Linn Unidisk 1.1 reviewed in the last issue or UHF. Plays CD/SACD/DVD-A and DVD.

Apparantly it is close to state of the art in all areas of reproduction and runs near your 10k budget.

This above would be correct if you can just stop listening CDs at all, and concentrate on SACD and DVD-A. But it isn't likely the case. Most of us have CD collections and substantially less hi-rez music. How are you going to enjoy all those all good CDs without nearly-perfect-to-your-taste CD player? Take Linn Unidisk for example. Nice, well built universal player. Now, just as among CDPs, its sound may be not exactly as what you are looking for. Unlike CDPs, where on healthy $3K level there are plenty, plenty of wonderful CDPs, how many alternatives to that Linn you have among Universals? I mean - real alternatives, too many modern Universals around $5K don't play Redbook CDs as $2K CDPs do. There is no enough choice - not for players, nor music. Well, one could keep good CDP AND good hi-rez separately, which would solve anything mentioned above. But to trade good CDP to the same price range SACD/CD player - not now. I listen to music, not technology.