SACD to Audio Aero Capitol

10 days ago i had a shootout between the Capitole and my Marantz SA-1. the Capitole sounded great, but not in the league with sacd on the SA-1.

the sacd was more open, detailed, and natural. voice was more textured and "real" sounding. a piano was more dynamic and "complete". if you were not going back and forth you would not easily realize the differences. but over time the naturalness of sacd comes thru.

my conclusion; even a great cd player like the Capitole falls short of a very good sacd player. the additional resolution of sacd wins every time assuming a sufficiently hi-quality output circut.

Sattothestars, i agree to an extent with your comments. the SA-1 is merely "very good" for cds so i have a Linn CD-12 for my 16/44. i also did a shootout between the CD-12 and the Capitole where i preferred the CD-12, but not by alot. on a previous thread i went into much detail on this event.

i do feel that even sacds not DSD sourced still sound better on my SA-1 than the cds on the Capitole, but the amount of difference is not as consistent.

Brulee, i assume you are referring to 16/44 on the SA-1 and not SACD. i agree that there are now a few cdps like those you mention that are better with 16/44.

i have heard that fully modified SA-1s are much better on 16/44 but i have not personally listened to any.