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Sony SCD-XA777ES multichannel SACD/CD player

"Sony. Sony. No Baloney."

I bought into that for a series of Sony clock radios, TVs, and VCRs, but I've never bought a Sony audio product. (Well, years ago I did buy a Sony receiver for my daughter...) Sony always seemed too mass-market and non-specialist to stir my audiophile passions.

Lately, however, Sony has staunchly promoted Super Audio CD as the perfectionist's medium for uncompromised music reproduction, and has supported that perfectionism with the impressive SCD-1 and SCD-777ES SACD players. At the Home Entertainment 2001 Show last May, Sony presented what I'm…

Sony SCD-XA777ES multichannel SACD/CD player Page 2

If you have only two speakers/channels, then you default to two-channel and use the two-channel analog outputs and/or, for CDs, the digital output. You can set the XA777ES to use the six-channel jacks for two-channel SACD if you have a subwoofer, but this won't work for CD—speaker/bass management is accomplished by a newly developed DSD-DSP LSI chip, through which passes only DSD (not PCM) signals. Moreover, in this mode, the XA777ES can't divert its multiple DACs to the stereo analog outputs, and you can't enjoy the advantages of the paralleled DACs through your main speakers.

Sony docs…

Sony SCD-XA777ES multichannel SACD/CD player Page 3

Switching over to two-channel SACDs—or, indeed, switching from the CD to the SACD layer of hybrid discs—was similarly edifying. There's no question in my mind that the resolving power and ease of reproduction presented by the SACD layer is easily detected with the SCD-XA777ES. I found that Opus3's Test CD-4 SACD (CD19420) and DMP's Multichannel Reference CD (SACD-16) offered demonstrations of this on every track. My favorite example is Duke Ellington's "Black Beauty" on the Opus3 disc, from Tomas Ornberg's Blue Five featuring Kenny Davern. The CD version is very nice and, probably, familiar…

Sony SCD-XA777ES multichannel SACD/CD player Page 4

After listening to the Berlioz disc, which I found sonically impressive but musically unfulfilling, I was much more fascinated by Benjamin Zander and the Philharmonia Orchestra's new recording of Mahler's Symphony 5 (Telarc 2SACD-60569). This ain't your father's Mahler 5; it's nervous and unsettled, and even the Adagietto never seems to find ease enough to take a full breath. So, while I might not return to it for pure satisfaction as frequently as to other Mahler 5s, it communicates with an intensity made possible by a superb multichannel presentation that absorbs me in the experience more…

Sony SCD-XA777ES multichannel SACD/CD player Specifications

Sidebar 1: Specifications

Description: Multichannel SACD/CD player with dual-laser pickups and full remote control. Six-channel analog output (RCA) for multichannel, two analog outputs (RCA) with paralleled DACs for two-channel stereo. Bass management with level/balance control for SACD only. Two digital filter characteristics and two digital outputs (optical Toslink, electrical RCA) for CD replay only. Frequency ranges: 2Hz-20kHz (CD); 2Hz-100kHz, SACD. Frequency response: -3dB at 50kHz, SACD. Dynamic ranges: >108dB SACD, >100dB CD. THD: <0.0012% SACD, <0.0018% CD. Wow and…

Sony SCD-XA777ES multichannel SACD/CD player Associated Equipment

Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment

Stereo System:

Sources: Heybrook TT2/SME III/Ortofon SME30H, California Audio Labs CL-20 and Meridian 800 DVD/CD players, Meridian 508-24 CD player, Mark Levinson No.360 D/A processor.
Preamps: Sonic Frontiers Line-3, Audiolab 8000PPA phono stage, TacT RCS 2.0 Digital EQ/Room Correction.
Power Amps: Bel Canto EVo 200.2 (monoblock pair), McCormack DNA-1 (with SMc Rev.A modifications), Sonic Frontiers Power-3.
Loudspeakers: Revel Ultima Studio.
Cables: Power Cords: PS Audio Lab Cables. DAC-preamp interconnects: AudioQuest Anaconda Balanced…

Sony SCD-XA777ES multichannel SACD/CD player Measurements

Sidebar 3: Measurements

The measurements were all performed from the SCD-XA777ES's front left and right output jacks, which benefit from the paralleled DAC chips. The Sony's maximum output level from SACD was 2.02V, which was a little higher (0.26dB) than from CD. Be warned: This will be audible in A/B comparisons, and will favor the hi-rez format. The output impedance was a low 110 ohms across most of the audioband, rising inconsequentially to 132 ohms, and the player preserved absolute polarity. Error correction was superb—the Sony played the Pierre Verany test CD without glitches to…

Sony SCD-XA777ES multichannel SACD/CD player Measurements part 2

DAC linearity, as assessed using CD data (fig.6), was superb, any amplitude error remaining below 2dB down to -110dBFS. The player's reproduction of an undithered 1kHz sinewave at -90.31dBFS from CD was essentially perfect (fig.7), with no DC offset apparent, and perfect symmetry between the waveform's positive- and negative-going halves.

Fig.6 Sony SCD-XA777ES, left-channel departure from linearity, 16-bit CD data (2dB/vertical div.).

Fig.7 Sony SCD-XA777ES, waveform of undithered 1kHz sinewave at -90.31dBFS, 16-bit CD data.

The analog output-stage…

Deeper Meanings

As a card-carrying member of the Audio Engineering Society and an avid audiophile, I was particularly disturbed by the ideas expressed at the 1990 AES Conference entitled "The Sound of Audio." (A report on the papers presented appears in this month's "Industry Update" column.) The tone of the three-day session in May was set during the Conference Chairman's opening remarks. He said that an AES conference on the sound of audio was "unusual" and "out of the mainstream." Further, he expressed a common underlying attitude among the AES that "audiophile claims" (of musical differences between…

Deeper Meanings Page 2

The book's central theme, the relationship between science and human values, is particularly appropriate to the chasm that exists between those who pursue musical truth by listening and those who pursue it through measurement. The goals of both are the same, but the underlying modes of thought are very different. In addition, the entire 412 pages of Zen could be considered an answer to Dr. Lipshitz's question: "Ah, but how do you know what is good?"

I have more than a passing interest in this question. A large part of my job—indeed, of my life—is to decide what is good and what is not…