Best affordable SACD player that does superb CD's

How much?
Look at Oppo on the very low end.
Marantz 9500 or 9600, a little more.

One man's affordable is another man's unobtanium. What is your budget?

On the very low end are the Oppo players. They are very good considering the price of entry.

An Oppo mod'd by Ric Shultz at EVS http://www.tweakaudio.com is a major step toward state of the art SACD/CD/DVD/DVD-A/HDCD playback. For somewhere between $500-$1000 total (including the cost of the player and mod) you can have an excellent universal player.

I have not owned or demo'd any big buck SACD players, so I don't know how the stock or mod'd Oppo compares. However, I have owned many different CD players that retailed for $1500-$3500. My EVS level 2 mod'd Oppo 970 is definately in the same league as the big buck dedicated CD players for redbook performance.

I totally understand some folk's reluctance toward mod'd players. But Ric has been in the business for a very long time and stands behind his work. If you send Ric a brand new Oppo for mods, I believe he will even offer you a full refund of the purchase+mod price in the event you don't love it. I will caution that my mod'd player took a very long time to break-in. If you buy it, plan to play it continuously for a week or two before passing final judgement.

Enjoy,

TIC

Marantz SA8001 SACD Player for $899.00 new. Excellent reviews.

Recommendations based on observations I made at the dealer's, I do not own any of these machines myself.

Would Marantz SA 15 S1 (2 ch SACD + CD) fit your budget? Otherwise at around half the price of the SA 15: Marantz SA 7001 (also 2 ch SACD + CD).

And if your reference to dvd is to be taken as a hint you want the Full Monty: Arcam DV 137 (multi-ch SACD, CD, DVD-A, DVD) which is in the price range of the Marantz DV 9600 mentioned above.

OK, a few considerations/recommendations from $99 retail to $1200 reatil. Does that help?
Thanks for the input, thus far.