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Sony SCD-XA5400ES-Best SACD for under $10,000

This Sony player supplanted my Ayre C5-XE 3, which I still have, months ago. I paid $6000 for the Ayre after determining that it was the best-sounding unit for under $10,000. The Sony blows it away!!!
A unit costing $1500 besting all others under $10,000? That is exactly what it does!
For reference, I am using Audio Research electronics and Vandersteen speakers and subwoofers (about $30,000); a similar system has repeatedly been lauded as "best of show" at CES, so we are NOT talking second-rate stuff here.
This Sony is the only SACD/Cd player I have EVER heard that puts a classical piano live in my living room; nothing I ever had before even comes close.
This unit is a small miracle. I would have gladly paid $8000 for it, but if they want to give the thing away for $1500, who am I to argue?
This unit is going to send the engineers at Audio Research, Luxman, Esoteric, and Ayre back to the drawing board; their current units at 4 to 5 times the price are not even close. Some engineer at Sony is a freaking genius!!!
wa6itd
Ag insider logo xs@2x
samzx12
1,218 posts
 
Bjpd57al there are people here who would argue with a FOOTBALL BAT. I really feel sorry for them because their lives are that terrible and negative and they have to pick fights here and hijack a thread. I am tickled you like the 5400 and there are plenty of others that do so screw the ones that don't.
magnumpi205
504 posts
 
Football Bat? Definitely grounds for ejection!
I'm sure a baseball bat will suffice.
By the way, have a 5400 and find it to be the best ES yet.
mcondon
233 posts
 
Bjpd5ya1, you are doing an effective job of ruining what might have otherwise been a good thread. Your posts are barely coherent rants whose main contention as far as I can gather is that a Sony CD player assembled in Malaysia selling for $1500 cannot possibly compete in terms of sound quality with more expensive players assembled in Japan (or Switzerland.)

This contention is ludicrous. Did it ever occur to you that one of the main reasons the XA5400 is inexpensive is that it was assembled in Malaysia, where labor is cheap, and not in Japan, where labor is very expensive? Although globalization has its downsides, one of the main advantages is to lower prices by producing goods in the parts of the world with the lowest unit labor costs. Unlike some audio brands that fatten up their profit margins through this outsourcing, Sony doesn't have as much cache as a brand and therefore faces a more elastic demand curve than other "niche" audio companies with valuable brand names. When demand curves are elastic, revenues are maximized by setting a low price (moving the supply curve to the right.) This is a basic concept in economics and probably the one that Sony is following with the XA5400.

In any case, it would have been nice to hear the impressions of more audiophiles who have heard both the XA5400 and other players at higher price points. How, for example, does the 5400 compare to the PS Audio Perfect Wave DAC/Transport, the Ayon CD-2, the Meridian G08, the latest Ayre, etc.? That is information that would be helpful for those of us trying to decide on the appropriate budget for a digital source. If it makes no sense to spend $6,000 on the Perfect Wave combo when the XA5400 sounds equally good, I would like to know that.
don_c55
1,025 posts
 
The Sony SCD-XA5400ES IMO sounds better than the $6000 Ayre or $8000 ARC tube CD player!
winoguy17
1,085 posts
 
Well said Mcondon. I like how he asks why we cant " stay on point " after he cuts and pastes 5 pages about Swiss watches! He also said he does not judge, than slams the entire country of Malaysia! Oh well, at least he LOVES HIS MUSIC!
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