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captainj · 17th October 2012

I'd go with a Sony in that price range. Even some of the cheap older ones (but not the ones that play DVD as well) sound great. The only current model Sony however is the SCDXA5400ES which is out of your price range but maybe you can buy new old stock or used somewhere? I got a new Sony 2000ES SACD player for cheap a few years ago and it sounds awesome. I've heard good things about the Marantz players too but haven't heard them personally.
Note: SACD players are definitely not all the same - some even convert DSD to PCM, thereby eliminating any of the touted benefits of DSD. I briefly owned a Yamaha SACD player that sounded terrible. I also owned a Denon which sounded decent but not as nice as any of the the Sony players I've tried (I've had several SACD players at one time or another).
Also note: there has been a bit of a resurgence for the SACD format but only as niche market - many great albums released on SACD in the past few years that sound fantastic, unfortunately also very expensive.

17th October 2012	#4
captainj Gear nut Joined: Nov 2006 Location: Canada Posts: 144	I'd go with a Sony in that price range. Even some of the cheap older ones (but not the ones that play DVD as well) sound great. The only current model Sony however is the SCDXA5400ES which is out of your price range but maybe you can buy new old stock or used somewhere? I got a new Sony 2000ES SACD player for cheap a few years ago and it sounds awesome. I've heard good things about the Marantz players too but haven't heard them personally. Note: SACD players are definitely not all the same - some even convert DSD to PCM, thereby eliminating any of the touted benefits of DSD. I briefly owned a Yamaha SACD player that sounded terrible. I also owned a Denon which sounded decent but not as nice as any of the the Sony players I've tried (I've had several SACD players at one time or another). Also note: there has been a bit of a resurgence for the SACD format but only as niche market - many great albums released on SACD in the past few years that sound fantastic, unfortunately also very expensive.