Best sacd player

I believe the answer to this question is temporal. Digital technology seems to be changing monthly (my impression...not based on empirical evidence). When it comes to those who modify machines, the quality of their end product can change faster than one might imagine, because they are constantly tweaking to refine their mods. One has to make a decision and act upon it, because the longer the decision is postponed, the longer one will be without SOTA digital playback.

It seems to me no matter what digital playback one chooses, one can be certain that something better will come along just as soon the new player is broken in!

What is a SOTA playback-is that what is in emm lab gear?

nreddy - SOTA means State Of The Art.

emmlabs uses 2 different transports. one is a modified philips SACD-1000 and was the 1st transport they used. It had a proprietary link added to it that allowed the whole philips unit to be clocked by the dac6 and to output DSD and the re-clocked data back to the dac. The problem was that the philips sacd-1000 is one of the biggest lemons in history and continually broke. not emmlabs' fault, but they broke regardless.

so, meitner decided to build his own transport, the CDSD. it does the same thing, but supposedly sounds better than the the philips tranport (i haven't heard it) and is built from the ground-up using an OEM philips transport mechanism and all propietary cicuitry.

as far as i know, the cdsd has been pretty much flawless in its operation - not like the SACD-1000 which i own. the one i have plays cds fine, fine it'll only play 1 out of every 4 or 5 SACDs and no MC sacds. (sigh)

but, i have a new used one coming in the mail monday that i was able to get cheap. lets hope this works long enough for me to save up for the cdsd.

I have the VSEI modded sony scd-1-it has stunning cd and sacd performance.Richard Wright has done a stunning job with the sony.He has kept the sacd and cd signal in dsd and bypassed the da convertor completely.I previously had the Linn karik and the stock sony was not as good as the Linn in cd playback.I am not sure whether upgrading to the Emm gear viz cdsd/dac6/switchman is going to give me dramatically better sound.I have just ordered the atc 150 asl pro-cant wait.

nreddy - you're gonna *LOVE* those ATC 150s!