Krell SACD Standard / Marantz SA-11S1

[kevin gilmore]

The Emm stuff is certainly nice stuff. But i don't like the almost complete

lack of a dealer network in the usa, combined with grief shipping across the

border into canada if the thing needs repair.

I've seen early emm stuff with lots of cuts and jumps. You don't ever see that

on krell gear. Also lots of complaints with his early transports, and even some

problems with current transports. And the 6 channel preamp has a design flaw

relating to volume matching of front and back channels.

If you can buy a computer dvd drive for $40 that works perfectly almost forever

why can't they make sacd drives do the same thing. Same laser, same bit rates.

[spritzer]

They can't even get the "audio grade" ROM drives right as owners of the Merdian and other players can attest to. The drive needed to be replaced 3 times in my G08 and I never even used the POS...

[Dusty Chalk]

I think we are a dying breed.

You're not alone.

Is the Denon true DSD? I heard the Pioneer wasn't, but I know I prefer my early Sony to practically anything else I've ever heard, except for the Denon.

[grawk]

You're not alone.

Is the Denon true DSD? I heard the Pioneer wasn't, but I know I prefer my early Sony to practically anything else I've ever heard, except for the Denon.

The 2900 chip decodes DSD directly. dunno about others

[postjack]

Krell Sacd Standard MKIII for sale on agon:

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?dgtlplay&1216257184

$2700 though, significantly more then the multiple MKIIs for sale. Looks like MKIII is an official designation though, as its actually written on the front of the player.

[postjack]

Heres a new option I'm rolling around in my head: scd-777es.

Pros:

-its black! Matches the rest of my gear. This is actually very important to me. Their my toys, I want them to look pretty.

-cheaper then the krell or exemplar. Can be had for a grand.

-moddable by the likes of RAM. They do the same mods the now defunct but highly praised audiocom/kern did.

-one on the gon right now w/ superclock 2 for $1250. The clock mod is considered the most crucial.

-uses the same cool transport as the scd-1.

Cons:

-uses the same transport as the scd-1

-shitty Sony service

-no balanced outs (not sure how important this is to me)

[postjack]

shouldn't cons also include "uses the same cool transport as the SCD-1?"

Somebodys having a deepak day.

Try searching within this thread for "transport".

[postjack]

you didn't say "cool transport" in the cons section, was my point.

Ah, you're picking at my lack of parallelism.

I thought about including "cool" in the cons for that very reason, but there is nothing cool about a failing transport. It is really cool when its working though.

[n_maher]

i think failing transports can be cool, depending on how they fail. being dropped in a vat of radioactive squids? very cool way for a transport to fail.

After 4 or so transport failures I can safely say that I have yet to experience a "cool" failure.

Most of the time you end up searching your wallet for the hundreds of dollars suddenly missing.

[Pars]

Changing lasers out sometimes is quite easy. It depends upon any alignment, etc. being required. The Philips CDM4 I have is just a drop in, and I have two spare.

The mech for this one (Sony SCD-1) however is rather expensive at $215+. You would need to either track down a service manual for this or know someone who knows how to do it. Point is a failed mech doesn't automatically mean new transport/player time.

[deepak]

shouldn't cons also include "uses the same cool transport as the SCD-1?"

I was thinking another con: "it's a Sony"

[Dusty Chalk]

that's why you sell the radioactive squid.

That's assuming the radioactive squid are yours to sell. What if you dropped it in a friend's vat?

[Pars]

I was thinking another con: "it's a Sony"

After my last couple of TVs, I think I am on about my last product from these guys...

[deepak]

Jack have you tried your PS3 for SACD playback? You might like it, and I might have saved you some money (of course this wouldn't work if your headphone system wasn't in the same place as your PS3 )

edit: nevermind it looks like SACD might only be decodable via HDMI

[tkam]

edit: nevermind it looks like SACD might only be decodable via HDMI

No might about it, the PS3 will only do sacd over hdmi.

[aardvark baguette]

Jack have you tried your PS3 for SACD playback? You might like it, and I might have saved you some money (of course this wouldn't work if your headphone system wasn't in the same place as your PS3 )

edit: nevermind it looks like SACD might only be decodable via HDMI

Plus he may not want to melt his discs

[postjack]

Jack have you tried your PS3 for SACD playback? You might like it, and I might have saved you some money (of course this wouldn't work if your headphone system wasn't in the same place as your PS3 )

edit: nevermind it looks like SACD might only be decodable via HDMI

Good suggestion despite the hdmi problem. Regardless, I have the 40gb PS3, which has no SACD capability.

[Dusty Chalk]

Plus he may not want to melt his discs

I was actually thinking of getting a PS3. How is this an issue? Do the PS3's run hot?

[tkam]

I've never heard of that issue, it's never been a problem in my ps3. Discs don't come out any hotter than they do out of just about anything.

[aardvark baguette]

I was actually thinking of getting a PS3. How is this an issue? Do the PS3's run hot?

I was exaggerating a bit, I just meant that, in my experience with game consoles (i.e. not ps3) they all tend to run very warm, sometimes downright hot. Much hotter than a computer drive. Just my experience. It was not meant to be a PS3 specific comment, just game consoles in general.