Universal Players vs. Dedicated CD/SACD Players

Personally, I prefer keeping things separated. I have a dedicated CD/SACD player in my main rig and an Oppo 103 universal in my second system (for the rare DVD-A and Blu-Ray Audio disc I own). I put the Oppo in the main stack for giggles, but as decent as it is, it couldn't hold a candle to my Marantz player on either redbook or SACD. Then again, the Marantz cost many times the money of the Oppo, so it didn't come as a terrible shock to me.

Jafant:

It's a modified Marantz SA-7S1. Not at all a fair fight between it and a stock Oppo, I realize. As I said, I just did it for giggles--to get a baseline on the Oppo. A buddy of mine is bringing his 105D over for a comparison next week. We're gonna stack it up against the Marantz and my 103D. 

Jafant:

The mods were done by an Oregon-based company called Jena Labs. You may have heard of their cables. My player was done a long time ago, and a lot has happened in the interim, so I've forgotten a lot of the details of the mod, unfortunately. But I remember she cleared the signal path of a bunch of crap and did a lot of damping, among other things. She left the Marantz HDAM output stage in place, because she really likes that particular design. Some other modders strip it out and replace it with something fancier. 

The result was really eye-opening. After many comparisons over the years, I think it can hang with some of the big boys. It's pretty good, IMHO.

Sorry I couldn't provide more technical info on the mods. The 'ol noggin' ain't what it used to be!

Jafant:

What player(s) are you running?