Linn Unidisk or Musical Fidelity kW SACD or ???

Bill,

Great post! Thanks for taking the time to give that review. I, too, was surprised that no one had chimed in with a nod for the kW SACD. But it is a relatively new unit, so maybe all those who have one are too busy listening to it to respond ;) I have been trying to get a demo unit, but my local dealer doesn't have any in stock right now. I would love to audition the kW along side, say, the X-01, which is another unit I am surprised no one has said anything about. I guess people are kind of tired of these "help me buy my next piece of gear" threads!

Bill, et al -- Good news (I think)... my local MF dealer is suppose to get a kW SACD in next week from Signal Path. He promises to burn it in a bit and let me audition it. He also carries Linn, and he wants me to run it against the 2.1, which I have already heard. But it should make for an interesting comparison. I wish I could get the kW up against the Ayre, but I had to give that back so someone else could give it a listen. Don't these people realize I am on a qwest?

Good evening, Audiogonnnnn -- In case anyone is out there listening, here is an update....

Today I went to my LD and gave a listen to his Linn 2.1 and the Musical Fidelity kW SACD he just got in last night. I had heard the 2.1 at another dealer, and was interested to see whether I came away with the same impression as last time. Answer -- yes. It is a nice unit and does a good job with the soundstage and keeps the higher end pretty liquid. Still, it is kind of weak in the bass. Interestingly, both this 2.1 unit and the 2.1 unit I listened to from the other dealer could not play the vocal on track 6 of Elenor McEvoy's "Early Hours" SACD.

The MF kW SACD was interesting. I thought it did a very good job reaching low and controlling the bass. It was a tad edgy on the high notes, but I attribute that to the fact that it is a brand new unit with no break-in time, and because the dealer hooked it up by its solid state RCA connections (the cool thing about this player is that it has both solid state and tube connections!).

I have the kW at home now, and I will be auditioning it this weekend. I am listening to it right now, and I am pretty impressed. Not sure where I will come out on this one, yet.

So here is the question, for anyone who has a view -- Audio Aero is launching its new "Prestige" CD/SACD player in a couple of weeks. This will be a $13K unit. If I like the MF after this weekend, should I just get it, or should I hold off for the AA Prestige? Anyone out there hear the Prestige at any recent shows that would like to share the experience? Is any player worth $13K??? Ahh, what an obsession this has become....

Never mind. I have ended the audition. What a huge disappointment! After running the MF kW SACD for a few hours, it would lock up if I tried to play an SACD disc after playing a CD. Instead of just starting with track 1 after the SACD was inserted, the player would flash "Play" and then start scrolling through the tracks on its display screen -- 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. The first time this happened, I grabbed the remote and keyed in the track I wanted. This worked the first time. However, the next time I went from a CD to an SACD disc and had the same lock-up, I could not coax it to play even with the remote. I tried powering the unit down and restarting it, and it worked (what is this, a Microsoft op system???). BUT, the next time I went through the CD to SACD sequence, neither the remote nor the power-down efforts could convince the player to play. Despite the fact that the kW SACD sounded pretty good, I won't get it. At this price point, it is just unacceptable to me that the unit is so finicky that it cannot play a disc. The search continues....

Tin_ears,
Just curious - did you ever get the chance to hear the Classe Omega SACD 2? Seems like it would be a "bargain" considering what you went through with the MF. How disappointing.