I've gone SACD! (And I like it!)

[Woochifer]

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.