fluid with sacd,nice build for the money,good with cd.

discloader looks weak,no cdrw,no volume output.

I have bought this unit second hand,to try out sacd. It was hardly used by the owner,because after he bought this player,he could get his hands on a scd 555es. The plastic foil was still on the screen,and I could not find anny scratch or fingerprint on the machine. There were only 7 discs played on it. When I took it out of the box,and connected it to my pre amp,it sounded horrible,I was very dissapointed. But then I thought it isn,t even burnt in yet,so I let it spin for a few days,and its sound improved by the day. At first it was easily outperformed by my marantz cd63ki,but 2 weeks later it was par. I bought a sacd of pink floyd,and was dissapointed again,I expected much more. It sounded even more natural on de 63ki! You could hear more spacy sound on the sony,but the bas was to much,and the stage became mudded when the band gave full potention. Now,4 weeks later,it became much better,and can you hear the real difference with the 63 I have now a sacd from Diana Krall,a modern recording on sacd,and this realy sounds phenominal! Now I can hear the full potention of sacd,real natural flow of music,Krall realy in the room in front,good 3d image,and a real piano with no edgy sound,this is what I expected of sacd! Everything is sounding clear,transparant,and very open,leaving the marantz way behind. There is a feeling of beiing there,as it should be. Afterall,Im happy now with it,and the sound still improves. Now I hope that sacd will make it in this world,and won,t dissapear after a few years,because Iunderstand that not manny people are interrested in sacd,if they are no audiophile. Here in the netherlands it is hard to find many titles on sacd,and are expencive in my oppinion. We have to wait and see.

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no sacd at home but, marantz denon mission philips my equipment contains: pre -power:croft(tube) speaker :sonus faber-KEF

very sweet top end and midrange.

May that bass could be better

I bought this cd player after reading favourable reviews on this site. paid £200 for it.At first I did not get much enjoyment out of it. My preamp was guilty big time. Then I changed my preamp and bam the sound opened up and bass became better defined. Let's just say if it were not for the curiousty factor I could live with this player for a very long time. Imagine this I have not played a single SACD since I changed my preamp here and yet it gives wonderful music. There is a moral here, if your amp is crap then it will rob your cd player of a lot of it's sound quality. The top end of this player is very good,The bass is there, but a little soft but I think my amp takes part of the blame here because noticed some significant improvments when I changed power amp. In summary this player does most things well, refined top end, good midrange and above average bass (Amp also plays big part in bass quality) preamp: rotel rha 10 power amp: Exposure Super Stereo 18 Speakers: Kef 35.2 Cables: Shark silver plated Interconnects: TCI whatever - not sure,entry level

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Sony CDP 570

Refined, dynamic, detail, space. Î

Does not play CDR’s, and at it’s original price of £550 you would expect it to.

I was looking for a reasonably priced CD player to replace my dieing Marantz CD65II SE (a player that had won the What Hi-Fi Awards best in 1989). I came across the XB940 through these review pages. At £200 I thought I had nothing to lose on what looked liked an audio bargain! I really thought that SONY stated it did not play CDR’s was a piece of marketing garbage - my ageing Marantz plays CDR’s fine and it was made before CDR’s were even invented; however it does not play CDR’s which is a major disapointment. The CD playback on this machine totally blows my Marantz away - there is depth and detail that I had not heard before, I don’t have much to compare it to so it’s difficult to give a fair criticism but I really think as a CD player it really sounds amazing - there’s plenty of punch there and there’s all the bass you need. The build quality of this machine is fantastic, there’s not much going on on the front - I like things simple. The jog dial is really great - you can access tracks super quick. The headphone socket works really well with my Senheisher’s HD600’s. However this machine will probambly me moved to my flat as a I really need a machine that plays CDR’s - I am going to look at the Arcam CD72 - if the reviews are true of this machine I expect to be blown away again. What about SACD playback? I have purchased Tubular Bells and yes it sounds superb - just like they say, warmer more detailed - my biggest probelm with SACD is the availibility and cost of the format - there are classic CD’s I would be preapred to pay £20 for but SONY really need to get the price of this format down if they want it take off. The range of titles will come in time. I would be interested in seeing reviews of the newer low end SONY SACD players. Oh, and by the way it can be custom upgraded by a company called Vacume State!

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Marantz CD 655

Very transparent sound both for CDs and SACDs.

Can't play CD-Rs/CD-RWs. CD tray a bit "plasticky."

The CD playing capability is superb. Very transparent with excellent resolution. Matches well with my Dynaudio Audience 50. Playing SACDs even gives more texture to the sound. It's a pity there are few SACDs of mainstream music.
Needs to be matched with other components to get the sound that you want, e.g., I had to experiment with different interconnects and found the IXOS Gamma Audition II worked better than VdH, adding more warmth and body. It's a matter of taste. One thing for sure though is that this player gets the music out of the disc.
I've been listening to the music and not to the hi-fi.

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Marantz CD 52MkII

Extremely good sound - very fine detail and imagery

Digital output shows better detail than analogue outputs - needs a bright amplifier and neutral speakers to give most realistic balance in my listening room.

Bought this through clearance sale - sound is excellent on CD and haven't tried an SACD on it yet. The digital output sounds amazing and I'm tempted to get an outboard DAC for it in future. It matches well with my Dynaudio audience 60's. The CDP-XB930 has a brighter sound altogether and works well with mellow sounding speakers but imagery and separation on the XB940 is stunning. I hope it lasts 8 years like my first Sony CD did. I own an Audiolab 8000A and that sounds too heavy and gives bass overload - my wife asked if we could get a Sony amp and I got a TA-FB940R which isn't in the same league when turned up loud but adds liveliness to the sound (maybe mosfet distortion?) and is bearable at low volume.

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Sony CDP-XB930 after Arcam 7SE, Rotel 971, Marantz 6000, Cambridge 500SE, NAD 521 during latest upgrade rounds.

detail,imaging,soundstaging

no power off or open tray buttons on remote,slow tray.

purchased a sony SCD333ES(USD$1650).Boy ,what a mistake.Cold,lack of imaging,bad soundstaging, but a good looker.Quite detailed with dig.filter set to "OPT".After 2 days,back it went.(US reviews here list the SCD333ES as being a 5 disk player.In N.Z it is a multi-channel single disk.Go figure!)Purchased an XB940 on close-out,it being "only an old 2 channel"for USD$420.Wow!,every thing i wanted,great detail,pin-point imaging,good width and depth in soundstaging,smooth controlled bass. I've run it for 3 days non-stop(is 300 plus hours burn-in really true?)and haven't even tried SACD yet.Big sound for small $$.Regardless of budget,this player is superb.Used with:Mission 782's,Kimber bi-wired 4/8TC,Plinius 8200,VDH 'CD102MK3 Special' interconnects.

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CAL alpha sigma,pioneer PD-75,phillips CD850MK2.

With SACD's it's amazing for the price, with CD's its as good as a $800 CD player at least. Great build, 'nice and simple' operation :)

where are the discs? :/

I am a college student currently 17. I have a system of Musocal Fidelity X-A2 amp, Monitor Audio Studio 20 speakers, REL Q-150E sub, NAD C520 CD player (which i was going to upgrade next) and a Sony Minidisk Deck.

I had looked at SACD in the past and thought that 550 pounds was a bit of a risk when i could spend it on a dedicated CD player, and i didnt want to buy one of the newer cheaper machines which have compromised on quality. They may be multi-channel but that wouldn't affect me and to be honest i don't want multi channel. A $10000 stereo system will sound better than a $10000 multi channel system. It's simple economics. You buy less of much better quality, and unless u care too much about movies... so what?

Anyway, i wen't to the local hi-fi shop to have a look around and saw this machine for a mere 200 pounds and thought 'why the hell is this so cheap?'.. so i auditioned it for 5 mins in the shop... and thought it's not much money to spend on what is a decent SACD player and a great CD player. Plus the build of the machine was second to none at a 200 pound price and better than most at the origonal price of 550 pounds. I got this home, connected it up and with CD's its much better than my NAD and much better than other CD players we have in the house such as the Marantz mentioned. I was amazed. And with the sample SACD disc i had it was staggering just how detailed it was and how good a soundstage was created. Every note was crystal clear, and it goes very well with the rest of my system. For 200 pounds you can't complain, when a newer and inferior machine in terms of build and sound quality costs twice that. One of the only genuine bargains i have yet seen. Go buy one before they are all sold out.

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Marantz CD6000KI, Arcam CD72, NAD C520

Open detailed sound, revealed more detail in normal Cd's, amazing presence with SACD.

Limited availabilty of SACD titles, but good CD player anyway. Does not play CDR's be warned.

I purchsed this player at well under half its original selling price. I presume it was a slow seller because of limted SACD titles and it inability to play cdr format. I have had to keep my Marantz CD6000 KI sig player for all the recordings I have got on CDR. Nevertheless on orignal recording it blows away the Marantz big time. You hear details you never heard before. Amazing depth and timbre. I partner the CD with its Sony TA-FB940 amp, which was supposedly tuned for SACD, but is very similar to earlier TA-FB930 which is available very cheaply. Any shortcomings with its limitations are forgotten on even regular CD playback, I was amazed, even before player was run in.
With SACD titles the detail is stunning. Sony have sinced released two more budget SACD players, but with regular CD they don't even come close, and on SACD lack the detail of the 940. Well worth finding at a discounted price. Very happy with this solid, detailed player.

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Marantz CD6000ki sig, Rocksan Kandy. Arcam CD72.

Very detailed and clear sound. SACD!

None (at least not for 400 US dollars)

This Sony sounds VERY detailed and neutral.Maybe
leaning a little bit more towards the bright side than to the dark.(My Pioneer DV-717 used as a CD player is a little bit "warmer".)The resolution, transparancy and purity of sound is very good for this price.(900 US dollars list price).
I'm not alone in this opinion.EISA(the european hi-fi press)
named the XB-940 "Audio Player of the year 2000-2001".

Since then Sony has cut the price and here in Sweden you can buy it for around 400 dollars -making place on the shelves for new multichannel SACD models.
If you don't want more than stereo, this is a steal!
Even if you don't care about SACD.But who doesn't?

The main reason I chose this player was the SACD playback capability. Now after a few months of listening I'm still amazed by the quality of this new format!Much better presence and "feel".Rich and full sound.Simply much more enjoyable than ordinary CD's.

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more recently: Pioneer DV-717 DVD player

A very beautiful budget SACD player, with a very wide soundstage.

can't play CD-Rs. Lack of SACDs.

When I first got the player, the sound was very cold and lacking in many ways. After a week playing with it, the sound stage had improved greatly, when I connected the player to the Quicksilvers. The overall had improved greatly. Rebecca Pidgeon is singing "Spanish Harlem" in my living room! I am truly impressed! Even the 'normal' CD had improved as well. The sound now is much more warmer and more filling. *Only 4 stars for value as not much SACDs are on the shelves.

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Pionner PD-T07, Quicksilver Audio Mono amp, Perpetual P-3A, Naim NAIT 2, Mission 753, Duntech Opal speakers, ProAc Response 1 'S', Sony TA-FB940r QS, Bose AM-3/AM-5/AM-10, Yamaha RX-2095.