Search for the Right SACD Player… [Part 3] 2011 Autumn

【Still Torn Over Which SACD Player to Buy】
Part 1｜Part 2｜Part 3｜SONY｜Marantz｜Pioneer｜DENON｜Cambridge｜ONKYO

Remarkably, four whole years have slipped by since I wrote Part 1 and Part 2…

It has been quite a while now, but despite running a dedicated pure Hi-Fi blog, I have written at some length about the fact that I do not own an SACD player. The basic concept of this blog is to pursue budget Hi-Fi over high-end — good audio equipment at a good price — and so with hardware like SACD, where the financial hurdle is rather high, the agonising never really ends, in more ways than one…

First of all, the budget is tight → ideally hoping for under ¥100,000 street price
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Which means the choice of models is limited
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And when I audition them, none of them really grab me
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Can’t take the plunge, so the agonising continues
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Personal circumstances eat into the budget even further
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Nearly ten years of going round in circles…

So that is how I have arrived at today still without a proper SACD player to hand, making do instead with the PIONEER DV-585A — the very machine whose digital board was borrowed by Goldmund. Note: I will say it again as many times as it takes — putting a PIONEER DV-585A on a shrine stand will absolutely, categorically not make it sound like a GOLDMUND product!

In the meantime, SACD software — mostly SACD Hybrid discs — has been steadily accumulating on the shelves, and before I knew it I already had goodness knows how many tens of them. It has got to the point where I really ought to buy a large CD storage rack just for the SACDs — and now I find myself wondering: most of you reading this blog… you already own an SACD player, don’t you?

Which is precisely why this little blog, devoted as it is so intensely to music and audio, has an obligation to get hold of a proper SACD player, regardless of personal preferences. If things carry on like this, I can hardly be expected to review the SACD software piling up on the floor with any real sense of responsibility (had there ever been any responsibility to speak of?)…

So, late as it may be, I would like to try narrowing down the candidates.
The points I absolutely cannot compromise on are…

1) Under ¥100,000 street price

2) Smaller and cuter is better.

3) Sound quality must at least demonstrate a clear advantage of SACD over CD

4) High sound quality in stereo 2ch playback (multichannel can wait for another day)

5) Must be capable of converting DSD data directly to analogue without internally converting it to PCM first

At this point alone, the number of eligible models can already be counted on one hand… In any case, applying the above conditions as of autumn 2011, I was able to draw up the following shortlist. As usual, I have agonised so much over this that it has turned into quite the epic, so I have split each candidate out onto separate pages below — please do have a look if any of them catch your eye.

SONY SCD-XE800
ONKYO C-S5VL
MARANTZ SA7003/SA8004
PIONEER PD-D6MKⅡ/PD-D9MK2
DENON DCD-1500SE/DCD-CX3
Cambridge Audio Azur 650BD

So, as of autumn 2011, if the condition is a street price under ¥100,000 and the player needs to be genuinely usable for 2ch stereo playback, this is where we end up: 6 brands and 9 models. Frankly, it is even fewer options than I had imagined… orz Of these, if I were to pick one right now… well, regular readers may have already guessed — the two I have had my eye on for ages are the ONKYO C-S5VL and the DENON DCD-CX3. Being cut from the same cloth as a certain compact machine that shall remain nameless, it naturally comes down to the two smallest ones on the list.

The preamble running on too long is par for the course here, but next time… a certain SACD player has finally arrived.

【Still Torn Over Which SACD Player to Buy】
Part 1｜Part 2｜Part 3｜SONY｜Marantz｜Pioneer｜DENON｜Cambridge｜ONKYO