Ctiger2
08-28-2003, 10:20 PM
Dear player gets SACD
Along with great album releases, Sony has cut the price of its top player, writes Peter Familari 27aug03
THE news keeps getting better for fans of Super Audio CD, Sony's high-definition music format.
After the company's decision to press on with a heady release schedule of its hybrid albums, including 16 Bob Dylan albums, comes word of a price drop on its top-line player.
Until now, Sony's Australian flagship model has been the formidably built and audibly stunning $3999 SCD-XA333ES.
Idling in the background, however, is a spanking new player, the SCD-XA3000ES, which Sony says is not only much cheaper but better sounding than the XA333ES.
How much cheaper? While the new model won't be officially released until October, Connect can tell you the price is a hot $1999.
If nothing else, the arrival of the 3000ES (and logically a whole new range of affordable players) signals Sony is serious when it says SACD is the next step beyond CD.
Sony also made available about a dozen titles from its subsidiary, Sony Music, and review samples of the new machine along with the XA333ES.
Both were wired and fired with the brand's TAFA777ES multi-channel amplifier and a package of Morel's best speaker to date, the Octave 5.2s.
To hear what the players did to the sound of standard CD, they were put through their paces with this system: an updated Wadia 830 CD player, the latest Audio Research SP16 valve preamplifier and VS110 valve power amplifier, Tara Labs speaker cable, Chord's $1800-a-pair Signature interconnect cables and a top Tannoy loudspeaker, the Dimension TD8.
With the 30th-anniversary EMI hybrid recording of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon playing at modest sound levels, it was akin to watching the band live at the Abbey Road studio.
While both Sony players had the musical talent to conjure up the recording venue, the XA3000 is the more assured machine, with tighter control over the frequency range.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,7069426%255E11869,00.html
Along with great album releases, Sony has cut the price of its top player, writes Peter Familari 27aug03
THE news keeps getting better for fans of Super Audio CD, Sony's high-definition music format.
After the company's decision to press on with a heady release schedule of its hybrid albums, including 16 Bob Dylan albums, comes word of a price drop on its top-line player.
Until now, Sony's Australian flagship model has been the formidably built and audibly stunning $3999 SCD-XA333ES.
Idling in the background, however, is a spanking new player, the SCD-XA3000ES, which Sony says is not only much cheaper but better sounding than the XA333ES.
How much cheaper? While the new model won't be officially released until October, Connect can tell you the price is a hot $1999.
If nothing else, the arrival of the 3000ES (and logically a whole new range of affordable players) signals Sony is serious when it says SACD is the next step beyond CD.
Sony also made available about a dozen titles from its subsidiary, Sony Music, and review samples of the new machine along with the XA333ES.
Both were wired and fired with the brand's TAFA777ES multi-channel amplifier and a package of Morel's best speaker to date, the Octave 5.2s.
To hear what the players did to the sound of standard CD, they were put through their paces with this system: an updated Wadia 830 CD player, the latest Audio Research SP16 valve preamplifier and VS110 valve power amplifier, Tara Labs speaker cable, Chord's $1800-a-pair Signature interconnect cables and a top Tannoy loudspeaker, the Dimension TD8.
With the 30th-anniversary EMI hybrid recording of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon playing at modest sound levels, it was akin to watching the band live at the Abbey Road studio.
While both Sony players had the musical talent to conjure up the recording venue, the XA3000 is the more assured machine, with tighter control over the frequency range.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,7069426%255E11869,00.html