Sony SCD-XA5400ES-Best SACD for under $10,000


This Sony player supplanted my Ayre C5-XE 3, which I still have, months ago. I paid $6000 for the Ayre after determining that it was the best-sounding unit for under $10,000. The Sony blows it away!!!
A unit costing $1500 besting all others under $10,000? That is exactly what it does!
For reference, I am using Audio Research electronics and Vandersteen speakers and subwoofers (about $30,000); a similar system has repeatedly been lauded as "best of show" at CES, so we are NOT talking second-rate stuff here.
This Sony is the only SACD/Cd player I have EVER heard that puts a classical piano live in my living room; nothing I ever had before even comes close.
This unit is a small miracle. I would have gladly paid $8000 for it, but if they want to give the thing away for $1500, who am I to argue?
This unit is going to send the engineers at Audio Research, Luxman, Esoteric, and Ayre back to the drawing board; their current units at 4 to 5 times the price are not even close. Some engineer at Sony is a freaking genius!!!
wa6itd
Yeah, maybe I was too hard on Tgyeti, I really DO love tweaking this stuff. I think I'm going to try and DIY that pebbles tweak he was talking about :-)
I used to own one and even had it upgraded. It sounds pretty good, but in my view the 10K+ giant killer claim is pure hype. I now own the Marantz ud9004 universal player, which sounds better analog out. The marantz as digital transport into my PS audio perfectwave DAC is better still.
I think it all depends on the rest of the system. The only thing I know for sure is at a mrsp of $1500 the Sony is truly amazing in my system and I have no plans to change it anytime soon.It replaced an Esoteric X-03 se .
I got one of these a few days ago, replacing a Rotel Rcc 1055.
The one word that best describes the sound is WOW. Very smooth, easy on the ears, highly detailed are also traits I notice. I am now playing music I thought I knew only to discover what I have been missing. There are sonds that I am understanding lyrics that I had not understood before. This is strange but, very nice. The ear fatigue is gone.
It is making me think about selling my analogue front end
and replacing the vinyl with cds. Radical heresy I understand but it would result in me listening more due to the ease of use factor.
I will see what 500 hours of burn in can do plus I have new speaker cables coming this week so that will take some time to settle in also.
I am very hapyy with this Sony...no baloney.
I believe the sound steadily improved with my unit for the first 200-300 hours but who knows, perhaps it is all in my head.I just know I like it even better now than initially.