If you haven't purchased a 963a yet, I would look at the Pioneer 563a. I just got one modded by Alex Peychev (http://www.aplhifi.com/Pioneer563a.html)
Wow, what a unit...all for under $700 and it includes the player. It still isn't broken in but the sound is incredibley transparent and smooth....unlike the XA777ES and Consonance SACD 2.0 I had. Another thing I noticed is there is NO sibilance to my SACDs. This was a problem which I heard with the other two players (more or less).
Alex told me the player is actually is a better unit then the Phillips 963a. It offers a REALLY NICE transport/DSP assembly that is important for building on.
By the way, Alex couples the DAC with Lundahl transformers and replaces the opamp output stage with his discrete "no feedback" circuitry.
Wow, what a unit...all for under $700 and it includes the player. It still isn't broken in but the sound is incredibley transparent and smooth....unlike the XA777ES and Consonance SACD 2.0 I had. Another thing I noticed is there is NO sibilance to my SACDs. This was a problem which I heard with the other two players (more or less).
Alex told me the player is actually is a better unit then the Phillips 963a. It offers a REALLY NICE transport/DSP assembly that is important for building on.
By the way, Alex couples the DAC with Lundahl transformers and replaces the opamp output stage with his discrete "no feedback" circuitry.