I've still not completely convinced my wife of the "need" for me to buy a new CD player, but this past weekend convinced her that SACD's as compared to "ordinary" CD's are a good deal better sounding, so I'm at least making some headway.

My son in law has a rather mediocre system with an Onkyo surround receiver, two dbx SF-2500's in the front, with small Polk rear speakers, center speaker and sub. He also has an Oppo combination CD/SACD/DVD player that he loves to death.

I'd actually never heard an SACD before, and when he played several for me, on this decidedly ho-hum system, I was mightily impressed with how much better they sounded over standard CD reproduction. So now, the Marantz SA-8001 player is very much back in the running as my choice for a new unit, and is actually at the top of my list for now. Telarc has many SACD's, and my son in law has found quite a few online that, at least for the time being, are still available.

It's too bad the SACD had to be released at the same time as DVD-Audio, once again providing the public with competing, and non-compatible systems, even though each, presumably, offered a noteworthy improvement in sound. From my listening experience over this past weekend (and, it was quite limited), I have to say I'm very impressed with SACD - so much so, I want to have it in my system. I suspect it's a dying format, so I'll have to purchase a lot of SACD's once I get the player (if I ever do!), and then just be satisfied with whatever few new discs are released.

So, for now, the Marantz SA-8001 looms in the future for me, and with just the right amount of persuading, I just might be able to buy one within the next few weeks. If, and when I do, I'll write about my observations, which is something I'm looking forward to doing. So, stay tuned.....