SACD Purchase Recommendations ..........

Mikado463

Mikado463

Audioholic Spartan
While my SACD / CD library is modest (1500 + or -) I have zero desire to rip it, zip it or burn it......therefore I'm planning on moving my current player (Cary 306) to a second system and since Cary no longer makes disc spinners what would you recommend ?

Oppo 205 is mighty nice for the $$

Esoteric is mighty nice and it's quite a bit of $$

Marantz ?? any better than Oppo ?
 
R

rnatalli

Audioholic Ninja
Oppo is always a good choice. Sony also makes some Blu-ray players which are SACD capable.
 
Verdinut

Verdinut

Audioholic Spartan
IMO, OPPO make solid universal Blu-ray players which are unbeatable in their price range.

I had a BDP-83 which I sold still in excellent working order. I am now using a BDP-95 which does an excellent job. I have no hesitation in recommending the new UDP-203 which will play 4K discs as well as SACDs, DVD-As etc. Those products are made by a dependable manufacturer that continuously does R & D and doesn't stand on its laurels.

If I were in your shoes, I would compare the 203 with the 205 before deciding.

Talking about Esoteric, you would be throwing money away. It reminds me of a Lexicon Blu-ray player which was released several years ago and, despite the fact that it cost 4 times as much as the OPPO equivalent, contained indeed OPPO electronics wrapped into a Lexicon casing.

It is so easy to get screwed by, what I call a type of misrepresentation, in the audiophile market.
 
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lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
My purchasing of SACD (primarily for multi-ch mixes) is a relatively recent thing and when I found my Sony S5100 would play them that was a bonus. Since then I picked up two more Sony players (another S5100 and an S6700) as I needed another bluray player anyways plus added that capability to a third system. While longevity could be an issue, we'll see down the line, but for the cost of multiple players for the three systems, the cost of Oppos was prohibitive. If I only had one system I'd probably get an Oppo, tho.
 
killdozzer

killdozzer

Audioholic Samurai
I have no experience with different SACD players, but I find info like this very interesting. Often people are not aware that some expensive units have some rather basic middle of the road mechanism from companies they would probably frown upon like Philips or Sony (I don't mean anybody here).

I was surprised to see that TEAC loading mechanism gets praised a lot (mainly the one that pulls the CD in through a thin opening like in cars), but I'm very sorry, I can't dig that page out anymore. I'll give it another try. On the one I linked you can also see that Classe and Krell used TEAC CD mechanism.
 
Mikado463

Mikado463

Audioholic Spartan
the list must be old dozer, I don't see Oppo or Esoteric listed ?
 
j_garcia

j_garcia

Audioholic Jedi
I've used a lot of different SACD players and honestly, most of them sounded good. The ones I always kept were the Oppos though. One of the better players I owned was an older Sony ES, very solid audio only model that I had picked up used, but when you include video, Oppo for sure.

Marantz is not better than Oppo when it comes to players.
 
eljr

eljr

Audioholic General
Oppo 205

Not crazy expensive , solid unit, can play everything you throw at it.
 
2

2channel lover

Audioholic Field Marshall
While my SACD / CD library is modest (1500 + or -) I have zero desire to rip it, zip it or burn it......therefore I'm planning on moving my current player (Cary 306) to a second system and since Cary no longer makes disc spinners what would you recommend ?

Oppo 205 is mighty nice for the $$

Esoteric is mighty nice and it's quite a bit of $$

Marantz ?? any better than Oppo ?
I have the Oppo 205....love it, would buy it again.

The Oppos 203 is a fine player, but if music is your weighted favorite...The efforts on the audio side of the 205 are substantial...a lot is made of the dedicated stereo and the multi-channel analog DACs...the upgraded jitter-free audio hdmi is much better than I expected.

The Cambridge Audio UHD player is pretty good, but imo it falls in between the Oppo 203 & 205...I didn't see enough improvements over the 203 to justify it being nearly twice the price.
 
S

sterling shoote

Audioholic Field Marshall
All,

For those who wish to enjoy multi-channel SACD and do not have HDMI input on pre/pro the OPPO is the ONLY solution today. In fact, it's the major reason to own an OPPO instead of others. Now, what's interesting is Marantz has a few "reference SACD Players" today which are stereo only. These appeal to me but without any means to enjoy my multi-channel SACDs they are a non-starter. So, for me, it's the OPPO, which I intend to buy this week. My believe is I will have the best state of the art multi-channel sound with the OPPO, as well as 4k video to enjoy on my new Sony KD-43X720E TV
 
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J

jmalecki05

Junior Audioholic
Another nod to Oppo. I use the BDP 103 for SACD and am thrilled. Although I don't have experience with other models, the value is tremendous given the players other capabilities (BD, Network, DVD upscale) and suburb build quality.
 

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