SACD drive sources


With the passing of Oppo, it seems that the manufacture of SACD drives is disappearing. PS Audio has discontinued their current transport and the new transport this fall won’t support SACD (their drive was from Oppo. As someone who has a large SACD library I am concerned about the future of this format.

Other than Marantz and Esoteric, is there anyone currently building SACD drives? Also, they do not output DSD over HDMI.

Sony appears to be out. Pioneer and Yamaha still have machines with HDMI output for DSD. But who makes their drives? 

Any way to know where drives are sourced from?
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Showing 2 responses by larryi

You could ask the manufacturer about how many drives they will keep in reserve to service existing units (or how long they think they can continue to service current units).  All responsible manufacturers do keep extensive reserves of items that will no longer be supplied by the parts manufacturer.  You could also rely on the internet to find such drives; most of the older drives are still available as new items, although some have become pricey.

Luxman makes their own proprietary drives and have recently come out with a new SACD player.  They appear to be committed to offering "vintage" types of gear, such as CD players and turntables.  I recently spoke to a Luxman representative at a local store's open house featuring this brand, and he said that their SACD player is actually a hot item, even in the US (CD's remain popular in Asia) market.  He claimed that they are keeping a very healthy inventory of their proprietary drives, even though they have, so far, only had to make five replacements worldwide.
The US Luxman distributor I spoke to said that the transport is their own design and build and not something outsourced.  I heard their top of the line player in an all-Luxman electronics system and the sound was quite good.