SACD Players in 2025?

[Kretinburger]

Yeah, inventory is changing rapidly. It's longer available at a few places that had them last week. I just ordered 1 from an online retailer. It would only let me add 3 to the cart when I tested so that's all they had. Another retailer had 7 however but I chose to order from the retailer with an actual store close to me.

I am guessing you live in Trumpsville?So they would be 110Volt.

 

[xray]

I am guessing you live in Trumpsville?So they would be 110Volt.

I'm in the Commonwealth north of there but still 110v

 

[Roux]

Philips DVD-963SA
pioneer dvd 989avi
Sony scd xa5400es
For me

 

[krabapple]

Yeah probably the used market, sadly. Love my SACDs.

Buy a cheap used Pioneer and rip them to files. That's future-proofing.

 

[BJL]

Brief follow up. I mentioned that I use two players, an X800M2 for audio, an X700U for video (for reasons, post #12). Ultimately, I returned the X700U and bought a second X8000M2. Nothing wrong with X700, but the X800 is a better device, more robust construction (e.g. metal frame), supports DVD-Audio and the power supply is internal (no wall wart to lose). And at this time, in the US from Amazon, the price difference is minimal (the X800M2 is about $320, the X700U $298).

I agree with the member in Australia who suspects that Sony is discontinuing it. That would be a real shame.

Edit: incidentally, the X700U does have a metal case, (with a plastic fascia) what seems to be missing is the internal metal frame present in the X800M2.

 

[Kretinburger]

I'm in the Commonwealth north of there but still 110v

You are very very lucky.As am I.Sorry,off topic I know.

 

[xray]

Just got my X800M2. Interesting that there's no indication it supports SACD or DVD-A on the box or the front of the unit, the logos only appear on the back of the unit.

 

[rocknroll]

I just ordered a X800M2 from a large online retailer as soon as I found out it had been discontinued. It was unavailable at both of my favorite retailers for electronics. I put my first one into service back in February and use it for playing sacd only (mostly 5.1 surround) and it does that job very well. I'm basically buying a back up for this one. For the price, it is an absolute bargain. It blows my mind that almost all of the current sacd players, costing thousands of dollars, can NOT play 5.1 surround!

 

[Power Pop 23]

Both of those Sony players are discontinued.Bloody shame.

Sony brought out a new variant of their '700' 4K player in March 2025, dropping support for WiFi and streaming.

https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1741937706

I do not know if this model has been discontinued or not. Sony, Amazon USA and Crutchfield show inventory of the Sony UBP-X700U.

 

[poopy]

Sony brought out a new variant of their '700' 4K player in March 2025, dropping support for WiFi and streaming.

https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1741937706

I do not know if this model has been discontinued or not. Sony, Amazon USA and Crutchfield show inventory of the Sony UBP-X700U.

For Sony, ‘new model’ is basically less functionalities, higher price and potentially lower quality components.
Soon, the enclosure will be a cardboard box….

The funniest thing is that they ship without additional box to make even more savings. More chance to receive your item damaged during shipping.
They also do that with their overpriced TVs. To make sure you receive your TV with a scratched screen and/or damaged pixels.
Who wants a pristine TV?

 

[Power Pop 23]

For Sony, ‘new model’ is basically less functionalities, higher price and potentially lower quality components.
Soon, the enclosure will be a cardboard box….

The funniest thing is that they ship without additional box to make even more savings. More chance to receive your item damaged during shipping.
They also do that with their overpriced TVs. To make sure you receive your TV with a scratched screen and/or damaged pixels.

Yes, such is the market for players of physical media. The critical 'ability' of the Sony UPB-X700U appears to availability.

 

[poopy]

Yes, such is the market for players of physical media.

True. It’s poor quality Sony or overpriced Magnetar it seems.

 

[sfogg]

Buy a cheap used Pioneer and rip them to files. That's future-proofing.

Yup, I just picked up a cheap used Sony BDP-S5100 to rip my SACDs. Really easy to do. I put the files on my Plex server and stream to an Apple TV 4k. The Plex or the Apple TV is handling the conversion to LPCM and I am getting 6 channels of 192/24 from that.

 

[krabapple]

Just one caveat. Hardware SACD players usually have a lowpass filter at output, at 50khz or 100kHz, to remove any ultrahigh frequency hash. I rip my SACDs to PCM at 88kHz, which has a similar effect (bandwidth limit at 44 kHz). Ripping to DSD or some crazy high SR lets more of that hash in, though I doubt it has any detrimental audible effect except in peculiar circumstances.

There's also a hornet's next of a possible issue with the LFE on an SACD -- whether it's to be +/-10dB or not -- that I just choose to ignore, as life is too short. ;>

.

 

[Scytales]

Just one caveat. Hardware SACD players usually have a lowpass filter at output, at 50khz or 100kHz, to remove any ultrahigh frequency hash. I rip my SACDs to PCM at 88kHz, which has a similar effect (bandwidth limit at 44 kHz). Ripping to DSD or some crazy high SR lets more of that hash in, though I doubt it has any detrimental audible effect except in peculiar circumstances.

It is the job of any D/A converter able to dealt with DSD to remove the high frequency noise spectrum content of the bit-stream. Be it read directly on a spinning SA-CD or ripped to a suitable file format, any DSD bit-stream will therefore be replayed with its HF content removed according to the design parameter of the DAC.

There's also a hornet's next of a possible issue with the LFE on an SACD -- whether it's to be +/-10dB or not -- that I just choose to ignore, as life is too short. ;>

According the Super Audio CD System Description, Part 2: Audio Specification, Version 2.0 (March 2004), part 3.2.1.2.4.3: 'All Audio Channels, including LFE [channel #4 in SA-CD channel mapping], are always full bandwidth and have equal audio gain'.

That provision was not part of the earlier relase to this specification I know of (Version 1.3 of June 2002).

But the ITU-R BS.775-2 standard (July 2006), Annex 7, aknowledges that contrary to the film industry, the music recording industry produces SA-CDs (and DVD-As, by the way) without a 10 dB gain offset.

Have there ever been multi-channel SA-CDs with LFE channels having a -10 dB gain offset, like in movie releases?

 

[sfogg]

Just one caveat. Hardware SACD players usually have a lowpass filter at output, at 50khz or 100kHz, to remove any ultrahigh frequency hash. I rip my SACDs to PCM at 88kHz, which has a similar effect (bandwidth limit at 44 kHz). Ripping to DSD or some crazy high SR lets more of that hash in, though I doubt it has any detrimental audible effect except in peculiar circumstances.

There's also a hornet's next of a possible issue with the LFE on an SACD -- whether it's to be +/-10dB or not -- that I just choose to ignore, as life is too short. ;>

.

I am ripping as DSD. The files aren’t converted to pcm, that happens on playback. My processing runs at 48khz so that will avoid the ultrasonics.

 

[krabapple]

It is the job of any D/A converter able to dealt with DSD to remove the high frequency noise spectrum content of the bit-stream. Be it read directly on a spinning SA-CD or ripped to a suitable file format, any DSD bit-stream will therefore be replayed with its HF content removed according to the design parameter of the DAC.

This is true if ripped to DSD (which thus requires a downstream DSD DAC...which should have a low pass filter before final analog output, assuming the system conforms to spec)

But if you rip to, say, 192/24 PCM, high frequency hash up to 96 kHz is still there; even ripping to 88 kHz leaves some hash, typically above ~30kHz.

According the Super Audio CD System Description, Part 2: Audio Specification, Version 2.0 (March 2004), part 3.2.1.2.4.3: 'All Audio Channels, including LFE [channel #4 in SA-CD channel mapping], are always full bandwidth and have equal audio gain'.

That provision was not part of the earlier relase to this specification I know of (Version 1.3 of June 2002).

But the ITU-R BS.775-2 standard (July 2006), Annex 7, aknowledges that contrary to the film industry, the music recording industry produces SA-CDs (and DVD-As, by the way) without a 10 dB gain offset.

Have there ever been multi-channel SA-CDs with LFE channels having a -10 dB gain offset, like in movie releases?

And therein lies the rub. If PCM-based formats, e.g., DVD-A and Dolby/DTS codecs, have the LFE offset -- which they are supposed to -- but SACD does not, this creates a potential inconsistency when ripping DSD to PCM. In fact, the foobar2000 plugin for ripping DSD has options for dealing with the LFE offset during DSD->PCM conversion.

 

[krabapple]

I am ripping as DSD. The files aren’t converted to pcm, that happens on playback. My processing runs at 48khz so that will avoid the ultrasonics.

Yes, a modern home audio system very typically involves some digital processing, which is resampling the audio anyway, unless the user is running in 'pure direct' or equivalent mode.

 

[Scytales]

This is true if ripped to DSD (which thus requires a downstream DSD DAC...which should have a low pass filter before final analog output, assuming the system conforms to spec)

But if you rip to, say, 192/24 PCM, high frequency hash up to 96 kHz is still there; even ripping to 88 kHz leaves some hash, typically above ~30kHz.

Yes, but any decimation of DSD to low sample rate PCM, even at 96 ksps, will filter out much more HF than any SA-CD player playing non-decimated DSD, because of the anti-aliasing filter required by the decimation process, said filter being much more steep than the filters usually used in SA-CD players or DSD DACs to filter out the HF content of the DSD bit-stream.

NTTY has produced neat measurements of that fact in two of his disc player reviews.

The Denon DCD-SA1, which has an optional decimating filter when replaying SA-CD:

The Oppo BDP-95, which has the same feature:

 

[MickeyBoy]

I just ordered a X800M2 from a large online retailer as soon as I found out it had been discontinued. It was unavailable at both of my favorite retailers for electronics. I put my first one into service back in February and use it for playing sacd only (mostly 5.1 surround) and it does that job very well. I'm basically buying a back up for this one. For the price, it is an absolute bargain. It blows my mind that almost all of the current sacd players, costing thousands of dollars, can NOT play 5.1 surround!

Whoa there. Am I missing something here? Almost all of my SACDs handle surround; most are 5.1; some early ones are 5.0, 4.0., and even 3.0. Are you talking about CD players only? Many universal players can handle multi-channel BD, DVD, and Sacd. Especially those from Sony?