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missing from the conversation is the implicit connotation that what is "best" is not absolute and hence dependes upon on'es criteria.
it has often been said that there is no best, so while it is entertaining to discusss the merits of the sony player, it is a philosophical and/or rhetorical question--it has no definitive answer.
Indeed, audio is *highly* subjective. I recall a few years ago a lot of people preferred a Sony Playstation as a digital source over units an order of magnitude or more expensive. In fact, with digital sources I think the level of subjectivity is highest. Still, there are common and prevailing opinions. For example, it would be surprising to see any audio journal rate the Playback machine behind those others if that is actually the case - such a take would be counter to what's typical, in the audio press itself as well as outside of it. (As for me, I've never heard it.)
there is no best anything in life, period.
There's a bit of a silly statement, philosophically. :) So the only absolute is that there are absolutely no absolutes? I disagree. In audio there may be no absolutes. |
tthere are no absolutes as far as quality is concerned.
food, literature, art, or any other aesthetic activity has no absolutes. why ? the standards for evaluation are subjectively determined.
also absolutes requuire certainty , not probability. in the disciplines of mathematics and logoc--the world of abstraction, there are absolutes.
in the world of experience there are no absolutes.
i would welcome an explantion of how something can be absolute in the world of experience.
admittedly such an explantion has no relevance to audio. it is a subject of philosophy. |
Food, art, and literature indeed have no absolutes. |
For those of you using the Modwright Sony 5400, any power cord recommendations for the transport and the PS9?
Thanks,
Lubes3 |
Yes Audiomagic makes a totally new technology as in their new line of cables they are a liquid polymer and donot have the inherent drawbacks of a metal based cable such as emi and rfi these cables have none of that and even the entry level cord has beaten other brands at 2x the cost .
Yes even a power cord for the 4pin xlr umbilical power cord. |
hi wa6itd:
my friend has the ayre 5 and raves about it. i have not heard it.
i am curious why you prefer the sony ?
i am also wondering which of the two players is more full-bodied and how both react to poorly recorded cds. |
The sony is a good machine for the money and is quite forgiving of poor recordings.However I recently picked up a Weiss Dac2 to try.I used the Sony as the transport.The bottom line is I never heard digital this good( ever).In fact I didn't know it was possible for it to be this good. I guess I just got lucky on system synergy.Some recordings are so lifelike it is hard to believe it is coming from a stereo.
Of course all this is my subjective opinion.As always YMMV . |
Too bad the Weiss won't play DSD.
I find the Sony 5400 quite excellent on SACD and good on RB too, but the two very good redbook/PCM DACs I have are better (driven by a Mac Mini). |
hi paul:
do you prefer your dac and mac in 16/44 mode over the sony in sacd mode?
that is if you have a hybrid sacd and play the sacd on the sony, do you prefer the sacd layer out of the sony over the redbook layer using your favorite dac and transport ?
if so, what dac are you using ?
i am considering the sony as an sacd player, but it may be possible that theredbook layer fed through a dac and xport may be preferred over the sacd layer played on the sony, in which case, the sony may have some sompetition as an sacd player.
i say this because i have found that hybrid discs recorded during the last 5 years, have an sacd layer which is more enjoyable than listening to the redbook layer.
then again there may be some dac and transports which can better some sacd players, subject to one's personal criteria, of course.
sorry to be so long winded. i am thinking and writing at the same time and could be more efficient if i spent more time composing my thoughts. |
I am pretty happy with the Yamaha CDS 1000 on SACD and also as a transport. A little more costly than the Sony but better made and optimized for two channel only. A VSE mod, same as the Sony mod they do, apparently takes it into the stratoshpere, but I haven't heard that. This player is competitive with many of the audiophile players at several times its cost (IMO). |
Mrtennis,
I output analog XLR as well as HDMI from an XA5400ES to a Cary Cinema 11a, so by selecting the input I can compare the Sony processing to that of the Cary. I prefer the Cary processing for both CD and SACD, but the big thing for me is that DSD is available with HDMI, and in particular multi-channel DSD. It can be glorious!
db |
i have yet to be told why the sony 5400 is preferred to the ayre sacd player.
the preference for the cary, i would conjecture is the somewhat tube-like, euphonic coloration that the sony lacks, or is there another reason ?
i may have a chance to purchase a new sony 5400 for under $1000, but am not convinced that its sacd capability will be superior to some tube based digital components playing redbook.
certainly one would expect the sacd layer to be preferred over the red book layer in many cases.
perhaps the sony's limitation in stock form is the that plaguing solid state components, namely too much odd order harmonic distortion.
by the way, what is the list price of the cary--hopefully less than $10,000, in which case it may have serious competition and beg the question posted in the thread. |
Mrtennis ... $1000 is more what the 5400 is worth . I'm glad you see this . Ive heard the 5400 many times in a few different systems and its not close to either Ayre players . |
hi tmsorosk:
in what way is the sony preferred to the ayre.
it has been sufggested that the cary sacd palyer has been preferred by one of the posters.
what performance parameters do you like over the ayre and other players ?
i would think that having a tube is an advantage. the sony in stock mode has no tube. |
hello dear friends . this is antonis from ( not so sunny today greece )
when i purchased the 5400 i had the weiss minerva dac in my system
the 5400 left it miles back in terms of analysis and musicality
BUT
today a friend brought his weiss 202 for comparison
AGAIN winner !!!! |
Hey Antonis, hang in there, and stay safe my friend! |
After 8 months with the Sony, I've decided to move on. It's for sale now if anyone wants to try it. It was just not the right player for my system. It is AWESOME, don't get me wrong, but I need something that's just a little bigger in the midrange. My whole system is pretty much flat response with good high freq extension and I feel like I need something warmer and with a bit of midrange bump. |
Has anyone noticed the OP hasn't chimed in since he started this thread ? That's odd. |
hi prsnccarty:
are you objecting to thinness in the redbook mode or the sacd mode ?
or are you suggesting that in both modes the player sounds thin ?
you may be saving me a purchase by voicing your comments.
then again, a modwright mod might solve your problems. |
i've purchased the 5400, and the modwright mods.
i've since purchased the service manual and four spare laser assemblies.
i believe it will be staying a while...it replace an EMM CDSA-SE
(note: i never heard the stock unit...it went straight to MW) |
He's busy listening to music. |
(note: i never heard the stock unit...it went straight to MW)
I have never understood that. Kal |
Kr4, "I have never understood that."
Amen! |
Kr4, "I've never understood that"
I would have thought you burn in the stock unit first,that way you do not to subject the tubes to the added hours? |
I would have thought that one would want a decent period of experience with a product before even considering a modification.
Kal |
hi kal:
consider the food analogy.
if you prefer a dish with a certain flavor, you don't tate it without that flavor. rather, you ask for the flavor.
in audio, if you prefer the flavor of tubes, there is no need to listen to the stock player before sending it out for modification. |
I think the analogy does you a disservice in that it clearly implies applying that particular color/flavor before tasting the dish.
Kal |
aqua_bleu_one 88.7% Positive feedback formerly ("Papi Chulo"), on E-bay is still ripping folks off, for one simple reason...
Greed. And the "subjective" truth.
Audio is so much "subjective", the correct written review, of
a product, sends the Audio world running like the "bulls" in Spain.
The Sony 5400ES is such a player,it got a few "flowery" reviews, and the next thing you know, 4 pages later, and folks are still arguing that it is the greatest Sony Player ever made. NOT!
Sadly, my XA-7ES, simply walks away, when it comes to making "music", the 5400ES, is ALL "hype", but as I said, let a few people "blow smoke up your butt", and you start thinking, "maybe there is some truth to all the talk".
aqua_bleu_one(a.k.a. Papi Chulo) still manages to get idiots to fork over funds often in excess of $180k, in 12 months, 9 Negative feedback,3 in the last 6 months, 1 in the last MONTH! Why would any human risk sending a dime to this crook?
The "chance" of possibly owning a piece of Audio, that is "touted" as awesome!
I know a guy that is guilty of buying a 5400ES, only to be so pissed off, he is beyond the ability, to write of his shame, from listening to the "hype".
He fell for it when Adcom first came on the scene, I bought an ES integrated amplifier, that laid waste to his Adcom.
He tried to drive 16ohm Electro-Voice speakers, the Adcom shut down, my Sony drove them with ease. But Adcom, was claimed to be the greatest thing since "sliced bread".
The Sony ES integrated amp. is still going strong.
If Audio, was "objective", he would have never fell victim to the "hype", I tried to warn him, he even admitted my XA-7ES sounded better, (actually that is what was the last straw) when a product is Newer, by over 10 years, you expect it to sound better, WRONG! Not in Audio.
If we were talking cars, and speed, that is "objective" a Saleen Mustang, will smoke a Stock Mustang, no surprise there, but Audio, is not at ALL "objective", most people will weave a clever tale, about a piece of equipment to sell it, knowing full well, it is not ALL they say it is.
2 well known magazines, have sold zillions of issues, pushing stuff that failed to live up to what they claimed it was. Why?
Because many Audiophiles, are "greedy", and are always thinking that "the grass is greener", instead of being satisfied with what they have.
Everyone in this forum, has sold something that they wished they had back.
But they "heard" this, or that, is the "bomb", so they rushed out, and sucked it up, only to be very upset.
I like ladies to listen to stuff, because they rarely lie.
Most, just call it as they hear it.
We compared my XA-7 to the venerable 5400, and the ladies, were in 100% agreement, the XA-7 just made "music", the 5400 is just, well... the last player Sony sent us. Sorry.
Listen with your "ears" instead of with your "eyes", and you will enjoy music much more.
I hate seeing a grown man cry.
Oh, and my Marantz SA-11S2 with the Level 2 Underwood Mods.
is in another league all together.No comp.
I Love Music! |
hi kal:
if i want sauteed garlic on my broccoli there is no need to taste the broccoli if it has not been sauteed in garlic.
with respect to the cd player, if i want a tube flavor, and i realize that a cd player has no tubes, there is no reason to listen to the player. ss and tubes do not sound the same. |
Your analogy suggests because you like sauteed garlic on your broccoli, you'll put sauteed garlic on everything, like on chocolate and ice cream, before tasting them first without garlic. Yuck. |
Do I think the Sony is the best SACD player under $10k? No.
But, I have heard one in my system and it sounded very good. It out performed my current CDP and I'm going to buy one soon. |
hi jylee:
i was only talking about sauteed garlic. no where did i say that i liked garlic on everything.
my point was to answer kal's suggestion to listen to a component first, before modifying it and i suggested that if i wanted a tube sound, via a buffer or gain stage, e.g., there would be no need to listen to the sony.\
that is, if i was trying to create a flavor which a component does not have , there is no need to listen to it to determine that it does not have the flavor. |
Feh. I just wrote a lengthy riposte but the clumsy interface here erased it while I looked up some other info. So, let's leave you with your last word and the taste of garlic in your mouth. I'd rather let the chefs (performers and recording engineers) ply their art than eat the same thing all the time.
Kal |
Well, now we are getting to some gnarly stuff. There is no way you can be certain that a particular device sounds one way or the other without listening to it. You may say that you know it has no tubes and that is sufficient. However, I maintain that it is not.
There are ways to "voice" a component to sound one way or not if the designer so chooses. Bob Carver demonstrated that he could make a SS amp sound like a tube amp. Conversely, the SF Line3 and Power3 that I once owned sounded more like SS than tubes.
In addition, to go back to the garlic analogy, you are assuring that every disc you play on this modded player will sound a particular way which, although you may like that flavor, will obscure the subtler differences among your many recordings. Sort of like having the garlic obscure any other flavors that the chef might be inspired to create. Of course, you can say you don't want to taste anything but garlic. If so, that's a limited palate. |
And, now, of course, this interface prevents me from editing or deleting my posts despite being logged in. So, I guess, both posts will remain despite some redundancy.
Kal |
My older Simaudio Eclipse (2002 model) sounded more larger and dynamic. 5400 has great midrange, compared to Sim, its thin sounding. For the price 5400 good, but more expensive players better.
Even CD on Sim sounded better to me than SACD on 5400. Just my opinion. This is a subjective opinion. Others may feel differently.
Bill |
I'am a Master Gardnener and there are quite a few different types of Garlic and they all taste different.So unless you grow your own no way to know for sure what you are getting.Even if you grow only one type changes in the amount of sun and water it gets will change the flavor.
So how can you predict how it will taste/sound?
I have a Sony on the way and I will for sure listen to what I just purchased before even considering any other option. |
I'm with mr Tennis on this one. He is not necessarily buying the "mod". He is in the market for a tube player and has a budget of $3,500. So you look at the contenders in this space and a modded sony is one of them. He is not interested in a $1,500 solid state player.
In food analogy; you want to go out for a Italian dinner on a $50 budget and are thinking of getting saltimbocca at Restaurant "Mama Sonia". Would you order their $20 pasta dish first to make sure their cooking is OK, and get the saltimbocca on a second visit? No. You order the saltimbocca and if you don't like it you never come back. |
ss and the classic tube sound do not sound the same. if i prefer a certain coloration, i am confident that the sony doesn't have it.
i would be willing to do a test comparing the stock sony 5400 with the modded sony and bet that i would prefer the modded sony.
in life when making choices it is too time consuming to listen to all products.
there have been very few solid state prodducts i have heard that i would want to own. thus my confidence is that the sony would be bought and modded, without listening to the stock version.
kal would you take me up on my wager. i happen to prefer a tube flavor using nos tubes. what is the purpose in listening to the stock sony ?
i will be able to criticize its flaws but that is a waste of time. i can't think of anything that i would learn that is of great value.
back to the garlic situation. i did not say every food should have a garlic flavor, only broccoli.
nor did i say anything about recordings.
obviously a classic tube flavor is like a tone control. changing the tubes changes the sound. you can't change the sound on a stock sony unless you make some change to the player. |
why do the most expensive cd players and dac (Esoteric, dcs. EMM, etc.) in the world not use tubes? I love tubes, have many, but for some reason the best players I have heard don't seem ti use them - and yes, I do like them. |
"you want to go out for a Italian dinner on a $50 budget and are thinking of getting saltimbocca at Restaurant "Mama Sonia". Would you order their $20 pasta dish first to make sure their cooking is OK, and get the saltimbocca on a second visit? No. You order the saltimbocca and if you don't like it you never come back."
It is a mistake to order steak in a hamburgher joint. When gauging any restaurant except for the very best, I try to find out what they do well, which is usually something modest. In this sense the stock Sony is a hamburger and should be enjoyed as such. However at a better restaurant like Casa Dan Wright the Sony is just an ingredient. One is inclined to trust Dan's experience on this a priori. |
I think the best analogy is Pizza, because it is an "upgradeble" dish. Say you love Pizza quatro stagioni. So you find this Pizzeria Danielo which has stellar online reviews and four Zagat stars to boot. Of course, on a first visit you order the $20 quatro stagioni. You would not dream of trying the undoubtedly excellent $10 pizza margarita first to see if the base, cheese and tomato sauce is to your liking. |
if you want an orange, why eat an apple ?
the stock sony soes not have the facility to alter its sound, so there is no value in listening to the 5400. |
WOW, I don't come look at the digital section here much lately. Pretty intense group. Mostly been reading at the vinyl forum. I'm trying to decide which way to go with my vinyl, or just dump it and move on, time will tell. To many hobbies and not enough time or money. But the best CD/SACD player in the world for me is my NAD Master Series M5, as it's the one I own now ! Are there better most likely, but if it's not here I don't speculate or care. I know secretly there are many people who love thier Master Series M5, so I know I am not alone in thinking it is a decent sounding machine. World beater who knows who cares.
To show I can be crazy, intense, and can add food into an audio discussion, I am going to BW3 for wings (wild sauce second hottest) and chips with cheese. And I am doing this against my and my Doctors better judgement. |
It would be interesting to line up the XA5400 against the $1000 Marantz SA8004 (which just got a rave review in TAS), and say the new Oppo 95 when it comes out. in general, I find shootout type reviews (i.e. line up a few contenders in a component/price class) more intersting than single component reviews. It seems single components 75% of the time are assessed "the best I ever had in my system" at this pricepoint, while a shootout forces the reviewers hand. |
Just a sidebar here, I owned the 5400 and then Modwrighted it...just great! Recently I picked up an NAD C565BEE for my sitting room system...I'm blown away! Very fleshed out and sexy sounding with weight and authority..sweet highs. If SACD is not a priority then this could warm your soul for redbook! |
Dgarretson, great post!
I see this tread has been running for a while so I might as well jump in.
I'm one of those not so curious individuals who bought the 5400 and had it shipped direct to Modwright. I've heard several Sony ES players over the years and to my ears, for anything other than SACD, they just sounded OK. The 5400 may be a different animal but I doubt it.
I just decided I wasn't going to waste the time or additional shipping charges on a stock unit that I only purchased in the first place to have modded by Dan.
If you own a stock unit or some other brand that you think sounds wonderful, that's great but if you haven't heard the Modwright/Sony, don't assume it's just another decent sounding player to be compared with other $3-$4k players.
A good friend of mine who also happens to be a dealer(not Modwright), purchased a 5400 and had it sent to Modwright same time I did. He too is very impressed with the sound but like many audiophools, he's sometimes tempted by what he reads in the audio rags. In this case, he's been itching to hear the $15k Playback Design unit that's gotten a number of gushing reviews.
Well, last week he took delivery of a used Playback Design he found on the 'gon for a measly $9700. Such a deal! I went to his house Friday night for a listen, wondering as I drove there, what if the Playback Design sounds a lot better? Would I be willing to ante up for the improved sound? Probably not; I really can't find any nits to pick with the Modwright.
I get there and his system's all warmed up, both players feeding his VAC Sig. Mk2 preamp via balanced Siltech cables and the Modwright's making beautiful music. We listened to 5 or 6 tunes then switched to the Playback Design. Oops, the whole soundstage shrank. The sound went from 3-dimensional organic images to something that could only be described as 2-dimensional, lean and analytical. The music lost it's magic and all I could think was, the $15k player sounds like good digital but not at all believable.
I'm thinking, something's gotta be wrong here. I ask my buddy, how long's your system been on? A couple hours. How many hours on the player, is it broken in yet. He says he's the third owner but the guy he bought it from says it still needs breaking in. Hmmm.
So, after a few more hours of listening and going back to the Modwright, we both agreed, either the Playback Design needs a LOT MORE break-in or the audio rags have lied to us again!
I've been living with my Modwright/Sony for a couple months now and I'm still shocked at how good it sounds. I'm also shocked at how average the Playback Design sounded in comparison. I read a couple of the reviews and they do say it needs 4-500 hours to sound it's best but with my friend being the third owner, you'd think it would sound better than what we heard. Another friend of ours stopped by for a listen a couple days ago and while he really likes the Modwright, he was less than impressed by the Playback Design unit.
Now, I'm not saying the Modwright is the best player out there but in my experience, you're gonna have to spend a lot more than the $3300 or so for the Sony and the mod, to get anything near the sound quality. I'm so impressed, I'm looking into a spare laser, just in case! Dan tells me, it's about the only thing that's likely to ever go bad. |
Rfogel is right. The Playback lacked body was two dimensional and brittle on top. I am putting the 500 hours on it and will report back. I have talked to several people who own the Playback and liked it right out of the box. This would be the first piece I had that went from bad to excellent. Never happened before we shall see. |
Jwm.
Are you using the stock cord ? |
