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I auditioned SACD today

After reading all the positive reviews and posts on SACD I decided to take a serious look at this format. I have 22 dual layer SACD in my collection so I took 4 SACDs of music I know the best. To my surprise one of the local dealers still had a demo Sony SCD 1. The sales person led me to the room and said take as long as I would like and left. Since I read all the reviews on the SCD 1 I was able to operate it without difficulty.

There was no question that the SACD layer had a bigger soundstage and better detail than the Redbook layer but the difference were not as great as I expected. I wondered how the Sony compared next to my Audiomeca Mephisto 11.X CDP. Then a strange thing happen, I noticed a Linn LP 12 turntable to the side of the equipment rack. I cued up one of the lps and played it. As a former owner of 2 LP 12 over the years I had a good idea what to expect, the sound was full , warm , detailed and most of all musical. I should add that I have over 7000 lps and 5000 cds and listen to both, prefer the sound of vinyl but love the convenience and catalog selection of cds.

To make a long story short I decided to forgo the purchase of a SACD player and continue to ad to my vinyl and cd collection and just enjoy the music. I may look at SACD again in the future as the hardware improves and the software growa in numbers.
rec

Showing 1 response by unclejeff

unclejeff
1,313 posts
 
I was fortunate enough to get a really high end CD player (Audio Aero Mark II) from a fellow who really did love it. I do believe him as I had read many of his earlier posts here on Audiogon.

What he realized is that his entire investment in recordings was in vinyl and he decided not to duplicate that which he already had just so it could be player on his new component.

The point is this: with your investment in vinyl and CDs, why move on just so you can start buying it all again? Is the extra 10% in quality worth the huge reinvestment?
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