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Woochifer
12-02-2005, 12:54 PM
For those of you on the left coast who have been hovering around the Good Guys store closing sale like vultures waiting to pounce on the final clearance reductions, that witching hour is approaching!

I finally blinked last night when I broke down and bought the Sony ES SCD-C2000ES SACD player that I'd kept my eye on since the sale began. The reduction on home audio products is now at 40%, so I got the player for $240. Still more expensive than the entry level SACD player that Sony sells at Best Buy, but it has dual power supplies, a more ruggedly built chassis, headphone jack, gold plated RCA plugs, dedicated two-channel output, coaxial output, a better remote, and a five-year warranty (knowing Sony's spotty recent reliability reputation, I definitely wanted that). I also read in a review that the SCD-C2000ES purportedly uses Burr-Brown DACs.

Thus far, I've been mightily impressed with this player overall, even though it does have its share of hiccups. There are several albums that I've been wanting to listen to in SACD, but what really threw things over the top was when I started buying the ongoing Mahler series CD/SACD hybrids from the SF Symphony after watching them perform a recording session concert of Symphony No. 5 a couple of months ago. Those recordings were originally recorded in the DSD format and the CD layers on those discs already sound exceptional. Knowing what the orchestra actually sounds like in the hall, I wanted to hear it in multichannel DSD. It has not disappointed in the least.

Comparing the SACD and CD layers, the SACD has a noticeably cleaner sound. The highs just sound more natural, with less audible ringing. I don't know how to put it, other than the sound overall is more relaxed and expressive.

Another interesting aspect of this SACD player is with the improvement that it made with CD playback. I'd been using a Philips bitstream CD changer, which has an subtly smoother sound than both the digital connection with my receiver and the older Sony CD player I used before. I was very happy with that CD changer, but it has started skipping on occasion and recently the CD tray started making grinding sounds when loading up. The new SACD player is even smoother when playing CDs than my old Philips was. So, now I can retire my trusty old Philips unit with a clear conscience.

Operationally, the SCD-C2000ES player is slower than my other CD players at reading discs, but it does display text information, and changing between CD, SACD-2 channel, and SACD Multichannel, was very easy. It also has a full complement of time adjustments, level adjustments, and bass management on board.

Now, are there any drawbacks? Indeed there are! For starters, the bass management is an enigma. With entry level equipment, there's now a trend to have preset profiles for large/small/subwoofer, rather than letting the user define the speaker sizes and subwoofer outputs individually. That type of preset arrangement is done on this player, which IMO is antithetical to the ES line's appeal with higher end consumers. Also, there's absolutely no documentation whatsoever as to what crossover point the player uses. Based on my listenings, I would guess that it's 100 Hz, but I have no way to verify that.

Also, the levels used on the SCD-C2000ES are way different from my other multichannel sources. The subwoofer levels in particular, I was not able to match using the available adjustments on the SACD player. Rather than using normal decibel ranges to change the levels, Sony went with a balance scale approach, where the levels are adjusted relative to the mains on a sliding scale. Major pain in the butt if you're used to using a SPL meter to set the levels. Even so, the range of adjustment was insufficient to match the subwoofer levels, and I had to change the default settings on my receiver to get the subwoofer level to match the mains. This means that I'll have to adjust the levels on my receiver every time I switch between the SACD player and other DVD-based multichannel sources.

I still have tinkering to do on the multichannel settings, but with two-channel sources, the SACD and CD playback thus far has been an enjoyable revelation.

kexodusc
12-02-2005, 02:12 PM
Congrats on your new toy, Wooch. I love my universal players. Nothing too fancy, but they are good step up on my Arcam CD player and my finest CD's. I haven't decided if I like DVD-A more than SACD or not yet, to be honest, if there's a difference, I can't hear it.
Both are wicked awesome.

The minor annoyances of bass management and manual settings won't diminish your fun in anyway (well maybe a little, but it's not so bad).

Beethoven's 5th and 7th, Kleiber, on DG! Get it!

Woochifer
12-02-2005, 03:25 PM
Congrats on your new toy, Wooch. I love my universal players. Nothing too fancy, but they are good step up on my Arcam CD player and my finest CD's. I haven't decided if I like DVD-A more than SACD or not yet, to be honest, if there's a difference, I can't hear it.
Both are wicked awesome.

The minor annoyances of bass management and manual settings won't diminish your fun in anyway (well maybe a little, but it's not so bad).

Beethoven's 5th and 7th, Kleiber, on DG! Get it!

Thanx Kex. I'm now REALLY looking forward to exploring the SACD world! Those Beethoven records sound very intriguing, so I might have to seek them out.

Those SF Symphony DSD recordings of Mahler are simply staggering in how great they sound. I already thought the CD layers sounded good, but they suddenly sound flawed when compared to the SACD layers. Hearing their recording session for Mahler's Fifth live and buying some of those discs made me very antsy to hear those recordings in SACD.

With DVD-A, I can just listen through the DVD video-compatible layer with the DD, DTS, and/or PCM tracks, so I've not felt quite as compelled to buy a DVD-A player. SACD of course requires a dedicated player.

Originally, I was going to just wait until I upgrade to HDTV before going to a universal player, but with my CD changer starting to wear down, I was going to need a new CD changer soon. So, why not go with one that can do SACD as well? That the SCD-C2000ES sounds so good with CDs is just a bonus, because I was reluctant to get rid of my Philips CD changer despite its age.

The bass management on multichannel is a pain, but not a dealbreaker. (I'm still tinkering with the settings, and might wind up playing all channels full range) The two-channel SACD and CD playback sound good even with the two-channel analog outputs fed through my receiver's bass management -- either way, sounds better than the CD audio when decoded through my receiver's DACs. The time alignment with the SACD player is actually more flexible than with my receiver because the subwoofer can be time aligned as well, which has had some audible benefits.

kexodusc
12-02-2005, 07:53 PM
DSOTM and New Favorite really are excellent...good suggestions.

N. Abstentia
12-02-2005, 07:54 PM
Yeah nice move. I'd like to steal a line (and modify it) from the Keanu Reeves classic Point Break and say..."Hope you stay with it. SACD is the source. It'll change your life. Swear to God!"

I love that.

Anyway....not sure of your musical tastes but if you have any inkling towards Pink Floyd, Dark Side of The Moon is pretty much a required SACD. I also was really surprised at New Favorite by Alison Krauss & Union Station...sounds phenomenal.

bobsticks
12-02-2005, 08:42 PM
Never knew what SACD was until I bought a universal for my plasma about six months ago, and now that medium comprises a large percentage of my listening. FWIW I enjoy Leonard Bernstein/NYP Mahler's 1st.Very dynamic and clean. Mozart's Sinfonia by Midori, Imai, and Eschenbach is a little forward but also good. Wynton Marsalis' Hot House Flowers is great and Miles' Kind of Blue really benefits from the SACD treatment.
On the flipside, Orff's CB by Atlanta Symph is ROUGH. Tympany sounds like tupperware!
In DVD-A this last Verdi with Bocelli is interesting only for effects--if your a purist you'll hate it. Hope this will help you find one or two things you like.Happy listening.

regards

Geoffcin
12-03-2005, 03:27 AM
Try running the speaker ALL full range. I find removing bass managment from the system can add another level of realism. The added bass that the bass managment gives by routing bass to the sub I find unnesassary for music playback, and I'm a bass hog!

hifitommy
12-03-2005, 07:29 AM
and i really appreciate some of the reissues but pure dsd recordings may be what cements sacd into place.

while at frys one day, i saw the chick corea 'rendezvous in new york' disc priced at 10 bucks. of course is snagged it. they really checked out the price, its a double disc and they realized it had been mispriced-MY GAIN.

i listened to it briefly and thought it was ok but nothing special. then the other nite on the BETonJAZZ channel, they had chick corea-rendezvous in ny, the ben powell segment. i watched and made note of the sound (not particularly great sound and engineering on that channel) and it was good so i put on the sacd.

while listening to the first few notes, i read in the booklet that it was recorded in pure dsd. well, the sound is superior and as loud as i was playing it (near live level) it never faltered or revealed itself to be less than excellent.

i will listen to disc two before the end of the weekend, i am looking forward to it.

my player-sony ns500v, and i too find the rbcd playback to be superb.

Florian
12-03-2005, 07:55 AM
Grats on the new toy. Enjoy!

thepogue
12-04-2005, 03:45 PM
Congrates on the new piece!!

I second the motion on the new.... Alison Krauss & Union Station

While listening to the new Ayre player I hard some great things...and I'm not at all a cu'ntry kinda' guy...but this is a keeper


enjoy brudda!


Pogue

BinFrog
12-05-2005, 06:00 AM
If you like Jazz and want to hear an extraordinary swing jazz SACD, get Gucky Pizzarelli's "Swing Live". The sound is as close to perfect as I've heard. Read the liners notes about how they tried to reproduce a small NYC jazz club feel. It's uncanny how realistic it actually is.

Woochifer
12-05-2005, 11:46 PM
Great comments and suggestions!

Over the weekend, I recalibrated my settings and finally got the levels on the SACD player to match up with the rest of my system. Sony's convoluted way of settings the levels and constantly resetting to the default settings whenever I toggled with the bass management options did not make it easy. And I had to hook up a Y-splitter to my subwoofer to boost the bass levels.

I gave up on the bass management, so I now run the speakers full range, with the subwoofer on and leveled at +4 db. Turning the bass management off really helped the sound quality. Unfortunately, my SFS/Mahler discs were all recorded with the LFE track inactive, so I got the nice wide open sound when playing back in multichannel, but it doesn't have that nice low end extension that I get when I use my receiver's bass management with the two-channel playback.

I did get Pink Floyd's DSOTM because I've been itching to try out the multichannel mix of that album (my LP copy of DSOTM is one of the Mobile Fidelity half-speed masters). All in all, I got mixed impressions of how the mix was done. In general, the sound quality was excellent and the sound elements were spread pretty well into the five channels, but a lot of it stood out like point sources. The mix doesn't create a strong side image along with the depth perception and wide soundstage that you get with the best 5.1 mixes. As I've noted before in my multichannel listenings, it seems that with older recordings, there just might not be enough material on those multitrack masters to create that all enveloping immersive effect that the best 5.1 mixes create. When I free up more time, I'll have to do the obligatory comparison of the two-channel SACD, CD, and LP playbacks.

A demo disc that I picked up over the weekend was Telarc's Jazzin' Surround compilation. About half of the tracks on that compilation were originally recorded in DSD, and the sonic fidelity is off-the-charts awesome pretty much across the board. Some of the surround mixes are too gimmicky for my taste, but a few of the tunes are born for multichannel. All of the tracks on the compilation were mixed with the low bass getting routed through the LFE track. With my player's SACD time alignment on the LFE output and an equalized subwoofer, this is some of the best bass that I've yet heard from my system. (My receiver does not allow for time alignment on the subwoofer, so my bass output using the receiver's bass management is about 3 ms behind the other channels [2 feet distance difference plus an extra 1 ms delay produced by the parametric EQ])

As much as I love Orff's Carmina Burana (I saw the SF Symphony perform it live a few weeks ago), I have heard a lot of bad things about the sound quality of Telarc's recording with Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony. Would love to find a good version of Carmina, but I'm not sure if there is one in SACD (the DG version in DVD-A is pretty good).

I've already got the high res DVD versions of both Bucky Pizzarelli's Swing Live (probably the best audience perspective club recording I've ever heard -- very realistic indeed) and Coltrane's Blue Train, but I am tempted to get the SACD versions to complete the comparison sets for those (the Coltrane album I already have on LP, CD, and 96/24 DVD).

Got a lot more listening to do, but so far, it's been quite an eye-opener! Now that I finally got all of the calibrations squared away, now I can really knock myself out. :D

BillyB
12-09-2005, 10:06 AM
For those of you on the left coast who have been hovering around the Good Guys store closing sale like vultures waiting to pounce on the final clearance reductions, that witching hour is approaching!

I finally blinked last night when I broke down and bought the Sony ES SCD-C2000ES SACD player that I'd kept my eye on since the sale began. The reduction on home audio products is now at 40%, so I got the player for $240. Still more expensive than the entry level SACD player that Sony sells at Best Buy, but it has dual power supplies, a more ruggedly built chassis, headphone jack, gold plated RCA plugs, dedicated two-channel output, coaxial output, a better remote, and a five-year warranty (knowing Sony's spotty recent reliability reputation, I definitely wanted that). I also read in a review that the SCD-C2000ES purportedly uses Burr-Brown DACs.

Thus far, I've been mightily impressed with this player overall, even though it does have its share of hiccups. There are several albums that I've been wanting to listen to in SACD, but what really threw things over the top was when I started buying the ongoing Mahler series CD/SACD hybrids from the SF Symphony after watching them perform a recording session concert of Symphony No. 5 a couple of months ago. Those recordings were originally recorded in the DSD format and the CD layers on those discs already sound exceptional. Knowing what the orchestra actually sounds like in the hall, I wanted to hear it in multichannel DSD. It has not disappointed in the least.

Comparing the SACD and CD layers, the SACD has a noticeably cleaner sound. The highs just sound more natural, with less audible ringing. I don't know how to put it, other than the sound overall is more relaxed and expressive.

Another interesting aspect of this SACD player is with the improvement that it made with CD playback. I'd been using a Philips bitstream CD changer, which has an subtly smoother sound than both the digital connection with my receiver and the older Sony CD player I used before. I was very happy with that CD changer, but it has started skipping on occasion and recently the CD tray started making grinding sounds when loading up. The new SACD player is even smoother when playing CDs than my old Philips was. So, now I can retire my trusty old Philips unit with a clear conscience.

Operationally, the SCD-C2000ES player is slower than my other CD players at reading discs, but it does display text information, and changing between CD, SACD-2 channel, and SACD Multichannel, was very easy. It also has a full complement of time adjustments, level adjustments, and bass management on board.

Now, are there any drawbacks? Indeed there are! For starters, the bass management is an enigma. With entry level equipment, there's now a trend to have preset profiles for large/small/subwoofer, rather than letting the user define the speaker sizes and subwoofer outputs individually. That type of preset arrangement is done on this player, which IMO is antithetical to the ES line's appeal with higher end consumers. Also, there's absolutely no documentation whatsoever as to what crossover point the player uses. Based on my listenings, I would guess that it's 100 Hz, but I have no way to verify that.

Also, the levels used on the SCD-C2000ES are way different from my other multichannel sources. The subwoofer levels in particular, I was not able to match using the available adjustments on the SACD player. Rather than using normal decibel ranges to change the levels, Sony went with a balance scale approach, where the levels are adjusted relative to the mains on a sliding scale. Major pain in the butt if you're used to using a SPL meter to set the levels. Even so, the range of adjustment was insufficient to match the subwoofer levels, and I had to change the default settings on my receiver to get the subwoofer level to match the mains. This means that I'll have to adjust the levels on my receiver every time I switch between the SACD player and other DVD-based multichannel sources.

I still have tinkering to do on the multichannel settings, but with two-channel sources, the SACD and CD playback thus far has been an enjoyable revelation.
Hi Woochifer. I am replacing a 12 year old Rotel CDP.I was considering the Arcam73T for $700.You seem thrilled with this Sony which also plays SACD's.Is this player a real challenge to the Arcam for straight-up CD listening.The SACD technology sounds interesting.Is the SACD format mainstream enough to consider a player with SACD over one without that might be a better overall performer with standard CD's.I noticed your player is from Sony's better ES line.I would normally never even consider Sony for Audio components but am intrigued by your post and the low price of this Sony player.My primary use wll be standard CD playing.Should I seriously consider a player such as the Sony.I have Rotel components and B&W 703's.Would a player like your Sony have potential in my system.Does this player also play DVD's?BillyB

Woochifer
12-09-2005, 05:45 PM
Hi Woochifer. I am replacing a 12 year old Rotel CDP.I was considering the Arcam73T for $700.You seem thrilled with this Sony which also plays SACD's.Is this player a real challenge to the Arcam for straight-up CD listening.The SACD technology sounds interesting.Is the SACD format mainstream enough to consider a player with SACD over one without that might be a better overall performer with standard CD's.I noticed your player is from Sony's better ES line.I would normally never even consider Sony for Audio components but am intrigued by your post and the low price of this Sony player.My primary use wll be standard CD playing.Should I seriously consider a player such as the Sony.I have Rotel components and B&W 703's.Would a player like your Sony have potential in my system.Does this player also play DVD's?BillyB

The times I've used Arcam CD players, they playback quality has been quite good, but I have no idea how they would stack up against other CD players given that I was not doing CD player comparisons when I listened to them and focused more on speaker comparisons. I believe that the CD73 now uses the same Wolfson DACs as their higher level CD players, and still uses a Sony disc transport.

The primary reason to get a SACD player would be so that you can listen to SACDs. I bought my SACD player primarily so that I can hear the SF Symphony's Mahler series (which was recorded in the SACD's native DSD format) and Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon in high res surround. I'm now collecting other favorite albums and enjoying the whole process immensely.

Even if you're not sold on the differences that the SACD's higher resolution can make, at the very least, it gives you the option of buying newly remastered versions of some of your favorite albums, many of which might have suffered from a poor quality transfer when they originally got mastered for CD and not received a subsequent remastering that fixes those problems. In particular, the SACDs I've heard thus far that were originally recorded in the DSD format have been stunning in their sound quality. (SACD is a DSD-based playback format, so unlike with CDs that typically require downsampling, a DSD-recorded SACD is for all intents and purposes identical to the master source)

Keep in mind though that SACD is not a mainstream format, and unfortunately on its way to niche status. To date, about 3,500 SACD titles have been released and many of them are hybrid CD/SACD discs playable on both CD and SACD players.

The other major benefit with SACD in my view is with its 5.1 multichannel capability. About half of the SACDs on the market are multichannel. Aside from now experiencing the music with a more complete soundfield, the process of surround remixing requires that the engineers go back to the original multitrack master tapes and create a 5.1 mix from there. This affords the opportunity to use higher resolution equipment during the mixing process that doesn't degrade the signal like older analog mixdowns did, and to better deal with any degrading signal processing or compression that might have been applied to the multitrack masters at latter stages.

Also, a lot of vintage classical recordings that were originally done in three-track are now getting released on multichannel SACD. SACDs allow for those recordings to get directly transferred the way that they were originally recorded. The Bell Labs landmark experiments in psychoacoustics in the late-30s found that the front soundstage was best reproduced using a three-speaker setup up front, and the two-channel stereo standard came about only because the vinyl records did not allow for three-channel playback with a discrete center channel.

Reviews I've read indicate that Sony uses very good DACs (it's a version of the same Burr Brown DAC used on the Arcam CD72, modified to do the 1-bit DSD conversion for SACD) and above average analog signal paths in their dedicated SACD players (i.e. the ones that don't also play DVDs), so the quality of the CD playback is better than you would expect at these price points. But, one of the reviewers wrote that his Arcam CD player (dont know which model) still sounded a little better than the Sony for CD playback.

I know that in my case, the SACD player replaced a 12-year old Philips CD changer, which had excellent sound quality for an entry level unit. It had noticeably smoother sound than any of the previous four CD players I had used with my system previously, so I was pleasantly surprised when I heard how good the SACD player sounded with CDs.

If you want to hear one of these units for yourself, you can buy the non-ES version of this SACD player (SCD-CE595) at Best Buy for $150, and use their 30-day return guarantee. That will give you a month to figure out if the sound quality of this unit works for your listening enjoyment (and if you borrow one of the Arcams, you can see if there's enough of a sound quality difference). It uses the same DACs and transport as the ES version, while the ES version adds separate power supplies for the transport and digital circuits, a headphone jack, coaxial digital output, additional L/R output, slightly heavier construction, and a five-year warranty. Otherwise, they share almost everything else underneath.

hifitommy
12-09-2005, 07:42 PM
to give such a nice, well thought out reply (replies) re the cd sound of the sony. i am so used to seeing dismissive/insulting remarks that usually dont contain any useful advice that its not funny. keep up the great assistance, i wish i had more patience. i usually tend to be MUCH more concise.

my experience with sony is my ns500v. seems to be a giant killer. it was cheeeeeep and the sacd sound is fine but the rbcd sound is better than any player ive had in the house. SO the enjoyment level went up in proportion to the number of CDs i have (a bunch).

my main squeeze is vinyl, i just came from amoeba where i snagged a RR-star of wonder for a buck. i also picked up a xmas present to be given to me-min/max by kraftwerk on vinyl. i wasnt going to ante up for that myself but its coming from my mother-in-law, in this case, a VERY nice lady.

keep it up, man!