SACD here we come....

I've bin and gone and done it – the aged Rotel DVD player is bound to the classifieds to make way for....

...Sony's flagship DVD/SACD player – the 999ES model. I've been lusting after one for ages and now HiFiBitZ have started knocking them out for £499.99 (rrp £1K, street price £750), I could resist no longer.

The only fly in the ointment is that I don't (yet) have a 5.1 bypass on my processor so I'll be limited to stereo SACD for now – but then stereo rules on this forum so no worries! What will be an interesting comparison will be CD via the Sony's DACs vs CD via the Tag's DACs vs stereo SACD.

The only remaining issue explaining to 'er indoors why I've bought a new player when the old one ain't broken.

Matt.

 

Nice one Matt and pretty good price .
The price will have dropped as their new FireWire equipped player has just been launched.

I have the model before yours (9000ES) and it's a failry competent player . It will be interesting to hear your opinions on the newer model.

Do you have many SACD's ?

If not I'd recommend the following :

"Folk Singer" : Muddy Waters
"Sketches of Spain" : Miles Davis
"Best of..." : Roxy Music
"Best of..." : Simple Minds
"New Gold Dream (81, 82, 83, 84)" : Simple Minds
"Let it Bleed" : The Rolling Stones
"Beggar's Banquet" : The Rolling Stones
"Hot Rocks" : The Rolling Stones
"Rage Hard" : Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Relax :MILD: !
"Sea Change" : Beck

I have maybe about 20 SACD's now and I can confirm that the titles are getting much better and the mastering has improved considerably since the first discs.

Enjoy !

 

When you side-by-side dem the new one against the old one to her (make sure the old one's been unplugged overnight!) the old one will sound "broken" and she'll go "that sounds soooo much better" - end of story

 

Re: Re: SACD here we come....

Unfortunately, she's a bright button (she's a surgeon) so not easily fooled. My approach is going to be that because the Sony has SCARTs and the old Rotel doesn't then when she wants to put on our little boy's “lean Italian†DVD there will be no need to fire up the whole sound system (which you have to do at present) because the sound will now come through the TV speakers! Believe me, this kind of this is important to the ladies.

Voodoo - I haven't ordered any SACD's yet so thanks for the recommendations. I will have to get DSOTM though and I also fancy Roger Waters' In the Flesh SACD but I already have this on DVD-V.

I must say that it's going to be a little frustrating having the multi channel SACD capability sat within the player but no current way of getting it into my processor - especially as I am a multi channel fan, not a "stereo-with-bolt-on-budget-AV-amp" person.

Matt.

 

First SACD arrived this morning - Miles Davis's King of Blue - should be pretty good and I don't own the CD so it's not like I'm rebuying it.

All I need now is the player!

Matt.

 

Don't you mean "Kind of Blue" ?

It's a decent place to start although, it has it's fair share of detractors .

I've only heard the 2 Channel mix and my disc is one of the older 'non-hybrid' variety so I've no idea how good the DSD>PCM layer is ?

That disc should however show you what SACD is particularly good at .

Enjoy.