http://www.stereophile.com/hirezplayers/108mitr/index1.html
http://www.stereophile.com/musicintheround/508mitr/
http://www.stereophile.com/hirezplayers/708mitr/index.html

Oppo or Pioneer Elite DV-58AV. I own both and prefer the Pioneer, mainly for it's easier to read and understand display. With the Pioneer it's easy to get to any layer on a disc, where I often find myself blindly toggling the Oppo, which would often play the CD layer of an SACD when I wanted the SACD layer. All this is much clearer on the Pioneer. Still, both are great players.

Dave

Without a doubt, one of the best values in a universal player in the sub-$1000 market, and definitely in best the sub-$500 market, is the Marantz DV7600 for $299 http://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-s...CD-DVD-A/1.html .

http://www.avreview.co.uk/news/article/mps/uan/836

Good lord that's a killer deal!

Tell me about it, I bought it when it was $50 more!

Nice.

Very tempting.

What makes these things more expensive? Is it mostly the internal DAC used? So, for instance, could you get a $1,000 sounding player by grabbing this and then getting a killer external DAC later?

It's a little clumsy switching between CD & SACD formats (which I don't do, since I use it as a CD only player), but other than that, the DV7600 is a pretty fine sounding machine right out of the box. Simply stated, it's $1000 player discounted down to $300, it has a fancy chassis, low jitter, fancy ICs, Crystal CS4398 DACs, and plays everything you throw at it.

http://www.homecinemachoice.com/files/reviews/HCC/058_HCC_124.pdf

No SACD/DVD-A output on HDMI, unfortunately, for the DV7600.

Kal

Is that a deal killer?

SACD & DVD-A (Are they still making DVD-A?) might just be transient formats.

http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/4209

What the unit does, it does extremely well, IMHO.

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Is that a deal killer?

SACD & DVD-A (Are they still making DVD-A?) might just be transient formats.

Depends. I am currently using my universal players via HDMI or custom digital connections and none via analog or ordinary S/PDIF outputs. That's today.

Also, while there may be no new DVD-As and the output of new SACDs is slowly waning, I already have more than 2000 SACDs. So, for me, it will be nice to have a player or players for this format even when there are no new releases. Same reason I have two turntables.

Kal

2000 SACDs...WOW! You must have them all.

Well, there are several nice budget players out there, the Marantz is only one of them, I'm sure you'll find something that meets your needs.

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Also, while there may be no new DVD-As and the output of new SACDs is slowly waning, I already have more than 2000 SACDs. So, for me, it will be nice to have a player or players for this format even when there are no new releases. Same reason I have two turntables.

Kal

I understand that. But I have about 20 SACD's. I love them but have not found many more that exist that I want! If I like 1% of the recordings in the world, and .01% of those are on SACD, then it results in my reality - not many SACD's that I actually want. I wish ALL recordings were on it but it ain't so dammit.