Upgrade CD transport/player vs. Sacd transport/player

@rar1 

just what does Joe Audiophile do in 2025

Depends where you live and what genres of music you listen to.

If you like classical, then Presto offers over 6000 new SACDs for delivery anywhere a postal service can reach.  

Big European orchestras with their own labels like the Berliner Philharmoniker and the London Symphony Orchestra are set up for silver disks of all types.

You need a transport at least, and Sony has one at a ridiculously low price point, which also plays Pure Audio Blu-Rays.  You need a pre-amplifier, AV pre-processor or integrated which has native HDMI input.  Not a problem if you are in Europe, Japan or Australia.

Then you can splurge on some superlative recordings from 2L - the Nordic Sound and compare CD, SACD and Pure Audio in up to 9-channel high resolution, plus Doby Atmos, all in the same silver disk package.

Or you can follow Joe down mysteriously odd rabbit holes

@ghdprentice - some prefer analog watches to digital for aesthetic reasons, not nostalgic. Digital watches look ugly, in my opinion. Some people don't care about that as long as it gets the job done. Other people do. My reasons for physical media has to do with aesthetics, too, not 'nostalgia'. Different experiences; one is not superior to the other. 

My biggest issues with streaming are twofold: what is the mastering? It's not revealed in most cases, is it? I know what particular pressings are on vinyl, and there is considerable variance in SQ. I do not have the same luxury with streaming as far as I can tell. A flat transfer at high resolution would probably be fine, but what is native as opposed to up-res'd?

Second issue is simply depth of catalog. I like more obscure jazz and hard rock. A lot of this material is simply not available from what I can see on Tidal or Qobuz.  

@richardbrand 

Hi Richard -

My bad, I sarcastically asked a question and left it a little too broad.  I was complaining about hardware, not software.  

I am NYC born and raised and 7 decades later still live here.  

I adopted to SACD pretty much from the start 25 plus years ago.  I have assembled a decent enough library of SACD titles, which I would guess at close to 500 SACD titles between single layer and hybrid titles, give or take.  As for total number of CDs in my collection, somewhere between 7 and 10 thousand.  A lot of paychecks were spent at J&R Music, Tower, and Virgin Records in NYC, add HMV if we include London, Sonic Records if we throw in Toronto.  

I never went down the digital separates road; all in one players for me.  I dislike having to acquire the detailed understanding of an engineer, when all I wish to do is press the 'play' button.  

And then along the way, manufacturers change up their product offerings and support models and reasonably priced all in one SACD players are not so common anymore.  If you have one of the classic SACD players from the early 2000's, whistling is perhaps the best you can do if you require factory parts and service.  There were enough horror stories coming out of SONY's Laredo SACD repair facility, that it could make a boy rethink his SACD strategy, assuming he wanted to protect his investment in SACDs.  SONY sure as schiit wasn't doing the thinking.

So, a new strategy of digital separates seems reasonable, until you have to navigate the DSD and PCM nonsense and what pins in a HDMI connector unlock the Da Vinci, sorry, the DSD code.  Add to this, what manufacturers out there still use or make their own drives, will they make or stockpile enough of them, and will  the $5k Brand X SACD player be serviceable in a decade's time?

All I want to do is press the damn 'play' button. 

So, when I faced this decision point for myself, I went with PS Audio, realizing after I purchased the SACD transport, I would need to purchase a PSA DAC to make it all work.  Unless, I was up to noodling around with connection pins, etc.

So, no rabbit hole, far from it.   I know all I am interested in doing is hitting the 'play' button.  

And streaming is not something I wish to do and the referenced inexpensive SONY universal player sounds like crap.

Rich 

@rar1 

the referenced inexpensive SONY universal player sounds like crap

Hi Rick

Seems we are about the same age!  I never mind a good bit of sarcasm, whether dishing it out or taking it.  Forgive me for thinking the embodiment of NYC is T-rex.

Have you actually listened to said Sony transport (not player)?

I have two of them and they sound exactly like the dacs they feed via HDMI!  That's the benefit of a transport rather than a player!

Try A/B testing against a known quality SACD transport that outputs native HDMI..

Now the inexpensive Sonys obviously do not have the build quality of high-end Sony gear, and the remote is missing features like direct track access, but they do the exact same delivery job as any digital transport, in my opinion as a scientist / engineer.  All for a couple of hundred bucks.

For the purists, they do have an external wall-wart power supply delivering 12-Volts but this could easily be supplanted by an automotive battery for the ultimate in clean power supply.

Meanwhile close relatives of the Oppo universal disk players keep popping up, like Magnetar and Reavon, though I think Reavon has dropped theirs now.

By the way, the dacs in my Reavon player really are crap for playing SACDs.  They down-convert to CD quality.  Digital output over HDMI is just fine, though

Seasons greetings!