Is there an SACD that can play cds well?

I find it funny that no one has mentioned the relatively dismal quality of the Sony SCD-1's analogue output stage. Compared with the rest of the player, the components used for this stage are surprisingly pedestrian. I have the Marantz SA-1, because I felt it had slightly more transparency and tonal accuracy compared to the SCD-1, but a friend had his SCD-1's analogue output stage replaced with high grade components and I don't think I've ever heard anything sound so real.

My friend lives in London and he had the work done by a company called audiocom (www.audiocom-uk.com), which is a company founded by former Trichord people. . It isn't expensive just to replace the analogue stage (my friend paid $500 I think), but apparently even an SCD-1 can use some component upgrades to make it sound better, although the gains in performance are subtle compared to the analogue stage upgrade.