oscarsear Posted January 24, 2005 Share Posted January 24, 2005 Considering purchasing SACD. Looking at: 1). Musical Fidelity SACD 2). Opera Consonance SACD 3). Sony XA9000 SACD The product will be dedicated 2 channel and I want it to play red book well also. I also want it compatible for use with an external DAC for red book play. Any and all input and other product options is requested up to not getting anything and waiting for better. Appreciate the advice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrot Posted January 24, 2005 Share Posted January 24, 2005 I don't know about the external DAC business, but if I were interested in two-channel only and wanted to spend the money, I'd buy this one, the DVP-9000ES: http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?dgtlplay&1110919151 or the Sony SCD-777ES http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?dgtlplay&1110235109 These are not to be confused with the newer, multichannel XA series. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kev313 Posted January 24, 2005 Share Posted January 24, 2005 I'll second the 9000es. It's a great price to get started and can be taken to a new level with modifications at a later date. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artto Posted January 24, 2005 Share Posted January 24, 2005 I like my Shanling SCD T200. It doesn't have the output to run a separate DAC (I think, lol), but I don't care. Has its own volume control via remote. Bypass your preamp/control center and see what you've really been missing without the extra interconnects, connections and circuitry in between. I've auditioned (or owned) the Sonys (333, 777, 7000, 9000, whatever) in my own system and IMO the Shanling beats them hands down. Plus it has both SS and tube outputs, and IMO, it looks so cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwc Posted January 24, 2005 Share Posted January 24, 2005 Artto, Tell me more about your setup. I have been glaring at the Shanling for some time now. Do you hotrod the player straight into your amp? What cables? What amp and what speaker? Are you bypassing an HT setup? Do you find the tube outputs sound better than the SS outputs? Where did you buy it from? Did you get any upgrades? Such as http://www.underwoodhifi.com/mod_shanling.html jc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Audio Flynn Posted January 24, 2005 Share Posted January 24, 2005 I figure if Art likes the Shandling there are really good reasons for this. The recent marantz review i read sounded like a canidate. Crappy part of expensive digital. How is it going to sound when it gets in your system? If it is a turntable you can get a new cart or get a new arm or fine phono cable to "adjust" the sound. But if you get a $ 2000 digitalplayer home and is only marginally better than your previous $ 600 "solution" you are really stuck. Then what do you do? => mod it? => add a Super Clock? => high priced cap replacement? Rather than listen to some digital player in a showroom. i would most likely go by a reviewer you like to read from TAS or Stereophile; as much as I hate to rely on those. Fremer or Robert Hartley I like a bit, but do not trust implicitly. I would be intrigued by having the cash to buy a Meridian or Shandling or Gamut; maybe several years form now. An upgrade path with pitfalls. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minn_male42 Posted January 24, 2005 Share Posted January 24, 2005 ---------------- On 1/24/2005 10:31:16 AM oscarsear wrote: Considering purchasing SACD. Looking at: 1). Musical Fidelity SACD 2). Opera Consonance SACD 3). Sony XA9000 SACD The product will be dedicated 2 channel and I want it to play red book well also. I also want it compatible for use with an external DAC for red book play. Any and all input and other product options is requested up to not getting anything and waiting for better. Appreciate the advice. ---------------- nearly every player on the planet has a digital output - either coax or optical so any player you can find should work fine with an external DAC technically, you are using an external DAC if you run your CD/DVD player into a receiver via the digital connection - in essence, the receiver is the DAC just focus on getting the best sounding SACD player and go from there Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artto Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 ---------------- On 1/24/2005 8:40:09 PM jwcullison wrote: Artto, Tell me more about your setup. I have been glaring at the Shanling for some time now. Do you hotrod the player straight into your amp? What cables? What amp and what speaker? Are you bypassing an HT setup? Do you find the tube outputs sound better than the SS outputs? Where did you buy it from? Did you get any upgrades? Such as http://www.underwoodhifi.com/mod_shanling.html jc ---------------- I bought mine used (Audiogon). The seller didn't even inform me that there were two extra sets of tubes with it, Western Electric 396, and the military spec version JAN5670W, probably worth $200 on Ebay. The WE396 is used by Underwood Hi-Fi for their expensive Level 1 & Level 2 upgrades of this unit. Underwood has not been very cooperative in helping me identify if my player was upgraded by them, it arrived with WE396 installed. At any rate, I prefer the original 6np3 tubes. The WE396 seem to take hours of warmup until sounding their best while 6np3 sound fine after a 5 minutes. I considered the Shanling primarily because its one of the few players that has variable output, even though I didn't really want to spend that much. Many years ago I discovered that if I connected my CD player (Revox B225 & also had variable output) directly to the power amps, the signal quality improved, another "veil" was lifted. I also had the additional problem in that my power amps have stepped gain controls, and they sound best set at 12 o'clock. Without variable output from the player I always had to turn the amps gain down where they sound their worst, and sometimes it was still too loud. The cables are nothing special. Monster Cable Interlink2 (from an era before MC got ridiculous in the marketing department). The Shanling goes to a "2PH3" center channel box that I made (Dope From Hope newsletter), and the 2PH3 goes to the power amp inputs. For everyday, "non-critical listening", I just run it through the preamp as one normally would. No HT setup in this situation. I generally prefer the tube outputs. I suspect the SS outputs are probably more "accurate" from a technical point of view. The edges are a little sharper. With the tubes, more "space" and a little more "bloom" and "weight". I'm not into changing equipment much anymore. I'm pretty satisfied with where things are at. There are improvements to be made, but this primarily will involve some remaining acoustical details. I might add that I felt the Shanling was one of the more significant component improvements I've made in a long time. I posted my review of it several months ago (summer probably). You can probably find it doing a search. My equipment is listed below. For more detailed info on my setup goto the Forum Architectural area and look for "artto's klipschorn room". Welocome to the Forum! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwc Posted January 25, 2005 Share Posted January 25, 2005 great response. thank you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kev313 Posted January 26, 2005 Share Posted January 26, 2005 http://www.audioadvisor.com/store/productdetail.asp?sku=DMMHSHANSACD&loc=3 Demo sale on the Shanling Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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