Post by Claude January 12, 2008 (11 of 58)
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Fredrikmo said:
A strange fact, then.
Or, I'm the strange one. I don't care for movies in surround.
It's not only about movies, but also about music DVDs.
Most current multichannel SACD releases are classical, and there are also a lot of classical DVDs being released. So it would be logical to be able to play those two surround formats on the same system. The same hold for pop SACDs and DVDs.
Maybe the division into two product groups - audio-only player for CD and SACD stereo, video player for DVD and SACD multichannel - also makes sense from a production cost perspective.
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Post by trntbl January 12, 2008 (12 of 58)
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Maybe it would be useful to list all multichannel SACD players WITHOUT video circuits currently in production. I´m afraid list is rather short:
Sony SCD-XA1200ES, SCD-XA9000ES, SCD-CE595
NAD M5 (video output for OSD only)
Krell SACD Standard
Any others?
kristian
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Orpheus said:
HDMI is not for me and to me it sounds like a recipe for poor sound. Good sound is only going to come from well done separate components.
I don't see how those things would contradict each other. The idea here is not to do the decoding inside the SACD player but use it 'just as a transport' and feed the DSD stream to an external DAC/decoder/amplifier/receiver.
> Maybe the division into two product groups - audio-only player for CD and SACD stereo, video player for DVD and SACD multichannel - also makes sense from a production cost perspective.
I've been working in precisely this area and I don't see any such sense. I've you've got an SACD drive it can always also read DVDs so adding DVD playback to any SACD player is 'trivial'. Well, you still need the MPEG decoding, video processing and output but it's not like going from multichannel down to stereo creates significant savings. It's mostly a matter of 2 or 6 sets of DACs and audio outputs.
I think the main reason is to do with marketing/perception: the distrust of many audiophiles for anything other than stereo, caused by long-time use of 'tricks' like matrixing for surround sound. The fact that SACD delivers uncompressed, discrete multichannel apparently still has not managed to take away this stigma.
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Post by Karlosak January 12, 2008 (14 of 58)
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trntbl said:
Any others?
What about Meitner gear, Teac's Esoteric has a few m-ch players too. Also add Sony SCD-XA3000ES (European model).
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Post by trntbl January 12, 2008 (15 of 58)
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Karlosak said:
What about Meitner gear, Teac's Esoteric has a few m-ch players too. Also add Sony SCD-XA3000ES (European model).
Thanks for the addition. I think Meitner outputs multichannel only to Meitner processor, so technically it´s a transport, not a player. The Sony you mentioned (I have it, BTW) is replaced by the XA1200ES. There might by some other lower-end Sonys available (SCD-XB790 and SCD-XE597).
kristian
updated list:
Sony SCD-XA1200ES, SCD-XA9000ES, SCD-XE595, XE597, XB790
NAD M5 (video output for OSD only)
Krell SACD Standard
Esoteric (several models?)
Meitner (with processor)
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You forgot the Marantz S17S1 in your list.
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By the way, while browsing the CES 2008 news looking for new SACD players (which I did not find, unfortunately) it struck me that Marantz’ line of audiophile stereo components and supposedly not-as-audiophile multichannel components may finally be coming together.
The last few years the stereo components have typically had this design with a curved front whereas the multichannel components had a flat fascia. While the latter still applies to Marantz' new BD8002 Blu-ray Disc player, note the design of the AV8003 tuner/pre-amp and the MM8003 8-channel power amplifier.
See http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20080110/ces17.htm
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Post by trntbl January 12, 2008 (18 of 58)
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The Seventh Taylor said:
You forgot the Marantz S17S1 in your list.
Discontinued according to marantz homepage.
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Post by Orpheus January 12, 2008 (19 of 58)
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trntbl said:
Maybe it would be useful to list all multichannel SACD players WITHOUT video circuits currently in production. I´m afraid list is rather short:
Sony SCD-XA1200ES, SCD-XA9000ES, SCD-CE595
NAD M5 (video output for OSD only)
Krell SACD Standard
Any others?
kristian
Unfortunately in Australia Sony is not bringing in any "highend" players like these and the NAD M5 has not been well reviewed. However, despite it being a non-multichannel SACD player, from all reports, the JLTi multichannel SACD player from http://www.vacuumstate.com/ and its worldwide agents is the one to buy and its not expensive and a steal at its price. I'll be listening to the JLTi next month.
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Post by trntbl January 12, 2008 (20 of 58)
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I´m sorry, it is a multichannel player or not? Seems to me like modded Sony DVD-player.
BTW, didn´t Modwright do some mods to sony XA3000 and XA9000 players? Tube output for stereo listening, perhaps?
kristian
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