Up to 84% in savings when you subscribe to The Absolute Sound
Logo Close Icon

Begin typing your search above and press return to search. Press Esc to cancel.

Three SACD/CD Players

Three SACD/CD Players

Google “SACD + Dead” and you’ll get quite a few hits. Some reference high-resolution recordings—several versions of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Isle of the Dead, or albums from Dead Can Dance, or some San Francisco band that formed in the Sixties whose name escapes me. But most refer to the allegedly moribund status of the Super Audio Compact Disc, introduced with great fanfare by Sony and Philips in 1999. A decade later, over 6000 SACDs had been released on over 400 labels. The medium’s superiority over Red Book CD in dynamics, detail, and tonal complexity—not to mention its capacity for multichannel audio—was readily apparent to most who chose to give it a serious listen. But with a failure to gain much traction outside of a classical audience (and to a lesser extent of jazz aficionados), the flow of releases slowed to a trickle, while the major labels—Sony included—abandoned ship entirely. This occurred, of course, in the context of the fading away of all physical media: CD sales have declined 80% over the past decade and 75% of record-company income nowadays derives from streaming. So it’s surprising, perhaps, that SACD playback capability remains widely available ten-plus years after the death knells were first sounded.

Or maybe it shouldn’t be surprising. There may not be the flood of SACD releases there was at first—though labels like Pentatone, BIS, Mobile Fidelity, Analogue Productions, Chesky, and Reference Recordings keep it interesting—but audiophiles with large SACD collections may not want to go to the trouble and expense of converting their discs to high-resolution files. To be sure, SACDs are a niche product, but longtime devotees and younger enthusiasts just discovering the format will be happy for reassurance that their holdings won’t become merely decorative anytime soon. In this review I’ll consider three SACD/CD players, from Technics, Arcam, and Yamaha, one of which is brand-new and two of which can also play digital files, either stored locally or streamed. All three are stereo-only machines.

The newest, most versatile‚ and, at $2999, most expensive of the three is Technics’ SL-G700 network/Super Audio CD player, a component in the manufacturer’s “Grand Class” product line. Weighing in at 26.9 pounds, the player’s substantial enclosure has four separate compartments to accommodate the power supply, the analog and digital circuits, and the disc drive—the object being to reduce both electrical interference and mechanical vibration that could compromise sound quality. The die-cast aluminum disc tray operates within a multilayer housing that Technics calls a “triple chassis structure.” The SL-G700’s power supply is a hybrid design, with both a high-efficiency DC/DC converter and, for the analog circuitry, a linear PS regulator, characterized by low noise and greater output stability. The D-to-A circuit has a dual-mono architecture, implementing a pair of Asahi Kasei Microdevices AK4497 chips that can handle 32-bit PCM at 384kHz and DSD sampling rates of 2.8, 5.6, and 11.2MHz. The digital circuit features, as well, a battery-driven clock generator. MQA decoding is on board, though it can be disabled.

Three SACD/CD Players

For connection to a local network, the rear panel has the expected Ethernet connection and, for wireless use, a pair of antennae. Also in back are coaxial and optical digital outputs, a coaxial digital input, both balanced and single-ended analog outs, and a USB-A input to connect a thumb drive or external HD. (There’s one of these inputs in front, too.) Anteriorly, there’s a highly functional display, navigable with the supplied remote control, and a headphone jack, as well as buttons to operate the disc drive, select source inputs, and adjust headphone volume. The remote can operate a Technics amplifier, if you’re using one of those. Bluetooth connectivity is provided.

Using either the wired or the wireless LAN involves installing the Google Home app on your smartphone or tablet. For streaming, the SL-G700 is compatible with Chromecast-enabled apps, and installing the Technics Audio Center app provides facilitated access to a number of popular streaming services, including Tidal, Spotify, and Deezer.

Three SACD/CD PlayersFar less imposing in its dimensions and bulk, and having a bit less functionality, is Arcam’s CDS50, released in 2018 and priced at $1200. Here, D-to-A conversion is performed by a 32-bit/192kHz SABRE 9038 Reference chipset, the same device found in the Oppo 205; this chip doesn’t deliver “native” DSD, and there is no MQA. The disc drawer is a rather frail plastic affair that takes a while to load. On the minimalist front panel, in addition to the drawer, there’s a gratifyingly readable display with adjustable brightness, four controls to operate the disc drive, and a large power button. In back, you’ll find an “inlet” for the detachable power cord. (Never heard an IEC receptacle called inlet before; you’ve gotta love those Brits.) There’s a screw to which to attach the supplied antenna for wireless connection, a USB-A slot to accept a drive with musical content, optical and coaxial digital outputs, an RS232 port, and both XLR and RCA analog outs. Like the Technics remote control, Arcam’s is also programmed to operate an integrated amplifier from the same manufacturer. No Bluetooth.

The owner’s manual is mum on streaming, but this is accomplished with the free iOS/Android MusicLife app, which gets you connected quickly to a number of streaming services, as well as to Internet radio.

The Yamaha CD-S1000 has been around the block a few times—it’s been sold for about a decade now, and the price is $1799. (Yamaha makes a higher-end model, the CD-S2100 at $2999, with an ESS DAC, better build, balanced outputs, and USB inputs.) With a weight of slightly over 33 pounds, the CD-S1000 is even more massive than the Technics player. There are dark wood panels attached to either side of the chassis and, depending on your perspective, you may consider the look to be bachelor-pad retro or hopelessly out of date. The disc drawer employs a gearless mechanism in a steel/wool chassis and has the smoothest, quietest operation I’ve ever experienced from a front-loading disc player. The buttons on the remote control seemed impossibly tiny at first, but I got used to them within a few days.

Four discrete power supplies are used for the analog and digital sections, the disc drive, and the display. That display doesn’t do text, which gives you an idea of how long-in-the-tooth this model is. The CD-S1000 uses a pair of Burr-Brown PCM 1796 DACs that can handle sample rates up to 192kHz though, as implemented here, can only output the Red Book specification 44.1kHz via the coaxial and optical digital outputs on the rear panel. The analog outputs are single-ended only. Another reflection of the component’s age is the absence of either networking or streaming capabilities. There’s an option called “Pure Direct.” When engaged, no signal is sent to the digital outs and the front-panel display is turned off—a process, Yamaha tells us, that results in unadulterated “transfer from disc to terminals.”

Three SACD/CD Players

To audition the three players in a comparative manner, I connected each in turn to the analog-bypass inputs of my Anthem D2v with a ten-foot pair of balanced Cardas interconnects. A pair of RCA-to-XLR adapters were used with the Yamaha. Transparent cabling connected the Anthem to a pair of Pass XA60.8 monoblocks and from the amps to Magico S3 Mk2 loudspeakers. An SPL meter was employed to get the levels of the players within 1dB of each other. 

I did plenty of general listening, but made a point of auditioning the same six selections on all three players. Three were from CDs: David Grisman & Tony Rice: Tone Poems (“Turn of the Century”/“The Prisoner’s Waltz”/“Sam-Bino”), Kevyn Lettau: Songs of the Police (“Every Breath You Take”), and Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band: Act Your Age (“Hit the Ground Running”). Three were from SACDs: Shostakovich: Symphony No. 15 (Haitink/Concertgebouw); Wayne Horvitz: Sweeter Than the Day (“LTMBBQ”); and Al Jarreau: All I Got (“Jacaranda bougainvillea”).

As a point of reference, I used a fourth player, my trusty Oppo BDP-103, a “universal” machine that handles DVD-Audio and Blu-Ray discs as well as Red Book CDs and SACDs. Usually, I employ the Oppo only as a transport, connecting it to either the Anthem or a T+A DAC 8 DSD for digital-to-analog conversion. The performance of all three of the players considered in this review surpassed that of the Oppo, which cost $499 when it was available. 

On the Shostakovich symphony, the Yamaha CD-S1000 demonstrated better image specificity and spatiality than the Oppo, and more appealing massed string sound. With the Arcam CDS50, the soundstage was flattened and screeching woodwinds were screechier than they were supposed to be, though I preferred the impact of a hard mallet striking timpani with the British machine. The Technics SL-G700 performed best with this disc, evincing much of the air I’m used to when listening to the recording as a multichannel DSF file on a Baetis Reference 2 music computer. Using the SL-G700, I could appreciate the focused purity of the glockenspiel notes that open Shostakovich’s final symphonic work.

With the Wayne Horvitz SACD cut—piano, guitar, acoustic bass, and drums—the Arcam bested the Yamaha in presenting the bass as a dimensional object. There was less detail than I heard with the Yamaha, however—it was harder to discern that the guitar doubled the piano melody at several points during “LTMBBQ.” The Technics player excelled at revealing subtle dynamic gradations, and bass had the greatest sense of volume.

On Tone Poems, two master musicians, mandolinist David Grisman and guitarist Tony Rice perform 16 duets, on every track playing a different pair of vintage instruments. A good system allows one to parse the often-subtle distinctions among the various guitars and mandolins. The initial attack of a plucked or picked note was fastest and cleanest with the CDS50—though the Technics seemed to reveal more nuanced information about the exact manner in which the string was set vibrating. The two musicians were more widely separated with the Yamaha and Technics players than with the Arcam—a narrower soundstage did seem to be a characteristic of playback with the CDS50. The relative scale of the two instruments was best represented by the SL-G700.

Songs of the Police is an extremely well recorded pop album, an analog original remastered as a JVC XRCD by a Japanese engineering team. The instrumental arrangements of a dozen Police songs are compelling, and Kevyn Lettau really gets inside each one. A favorite is “Every Breath You Take,” done up as a gospel-inflected hymn of faith and devotion (rather than as an account of interpersonal paranoia) with elaborate background vocals and searing alto sax solos. Both the Oppo and Yamaha machines had me wondering if a mistake had been made with the album credits, and the featured horn was actually a soprano sax. Only the SL-G700 fully fleshed out the sound with enough resonance in the instrument’s lower range to make it register as a member of the saxophone family it really belongs to. Arcam’s player did deliver a gutsier bass/kick drum sound; the Technics was best at unraveling the harmonically rich backing vocals placed behind Lettau in the mix.

With “Hit the Ground Running,” the Yamaha, Arcam, and Technics players all surpassed the Oppo in taming an inherently bright recording without changing its fundamental character and depleting its excitement. The Arcam, as usual, provided the most impact with electric bass and drums and, for once, the soundstage was as wide with the CDS50 as it was with the other machines. Timbral detail was best with the Technics; I don’t know what brand of electronic piano Gordon Goodwin was actually playing, but the sound he was after was definitely that of a Fender Rhodes and not a Wurlitzer.

On Al Jarreau’s joyous, South African-influenced selection, the arrangement coalesced best with the SL-G700 to deliver the song’s message of hope. Chris Walker was Jarreau’s bassist for two decades, and he plays with a virtuosic light touch. Moving from the Oppo and Yamaha to the Arcam and Technics machines, the bass sonority became increasingly buoyant, moving the music irresistibly forward. The knowing inflections of Jarreau’s vocal—he was a real jazz singer, after all—were readily apparent with all three players.

How should an audiophile looking to replace or initiate SACD playback proceed? That depends, I think, on how committed to the format you’ve been over the past 20 years and, in general, how you consume digital audio. I did listen to the Arcam and Technics machines play music stored on my NAS and streamed with Tidal and found that the sonic pluses and minuses observed with CDs and SACDs held up. If you play discs, have a local cache of digital audio files, and are embracing the inevitable future of streaming, both the CDS50 and the SL-G700 are worthy of consideration. The Technics is the better-built machine and sounds it, plus it does “native” DSD and MQA, which may or may not be important to a prospective purchaser. At 40% of the cost of the SL-G700, the Arcam holds its own sonically and may actually out-perform the Technics with dynamically energetic rock and pop. If you already have a top-performing USB DAC, neither of these machines may make sense. For the best performance with discs and files, you may want both a stand-alone disc transport and a music server.

As for the Yamaha, if my beloved Oppo were to croak tomorrow, I’d buy the built-like-a tank CD-S1000 in a heartbeat to use as a transport forever more. I compared playback of “Hit the Ground Running,” as spun by the Yamaha with the data sent for decoding by my reference T+A DAC 8 DSD (via the CD-S1000’s coaxial digital output), to a FLAC file ripped from the CD and read by the Baetis computer, with D-to-A conversion, again, by the T+A. For years, I’ve consistently preferred the sound of the file generated by ripping a CD (or SACD) to that of the original disc. Not so here. At matched levels, the Yamaha/T+A combination—reading a CD—was more involving than the Baetis/T+A option—playing a file, with more detail, crisper dynamics, and better delineation of bass. The difference wasn’t profound, but as my preference usually leans the other way, for me this was highly significant. The CD-S1000 has one hell of a disc-reading mechanism.

The Super Audio Compact Disc may be remembered as a format that fizzled, ignominiously cast off by the very people who invented it. But in a real sense, the technology was a milestone in the history of high-end audio. SACD was a tacit acknowledgement that the original Compact Disc, introduced 17 years earlier, was not “Perfect Sound Forever” and that a closer approach to a believable representation of live music was possible with digital encoding. The medium’s legacy is, of course, the continued availability of high-resolution downloads and the nascent growth of better-than-CD-quality streaming. Yes, SACD is pretty much dying off, commercially. Thankfully, the ability to enjoy these artifacts—and the occasional new specimens that appear—seems assured, thanks to products like the Yamaha, Arcam, and Technics players, and quite a few others. The SACD isn’t dead yet. Not by a long shot.

Specs & Pricing

Technics SL-G700 SACD/CD/Network Streaming Player 
Inputs: Coaxial digital, optical digital, two USB-A, LAN Ethernet
Formats supported: DSD, FLAC, WAV, AAC, AIFF, ALAC, MP3; PCM up to 192, DSD up to 11.2 MHz, MQA
Outputs: Digital coaxial, optical coaxial, analog balanced XLR, analog RCA
Dimensions: 161516” x 378” x 16132
Weight: 26.9 lbs.
Price: $2999

PANASONIC CORPORATION OF NORTH AMERICA
Two Riverfront Plaza
Newark, NJ 07102-5490
(877) 803-8492
panasonic.com

Arcam CDS50 SACD/CD/Network Streaming Player
Inputs: USB-B, one coaxial, one optical, network
Formats supported: FLAC, WAC, AAC, AIFF, OGG, MP3, MMA up to 192kHz
Outputs: Digital coaxial, optical (up to 96; analog balanced and RCA; USB; RS232
Dimensions: 17.0″ x 3.4″ x 11.1″
Weight: 11.7 lbs.
Price: $1200

ARCAM
The West Wing, Stirling House
Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire, CB25 9PB
England
+44 (0) 1223 203200
arcam.co.uk

Yamaha CD-S1000 Super Audio CD Player
Inputs: None
Formats supported: CD, SA-CD, CD/-R/-RW, MP3, WMA
Outputs: One coaxial, one optical; analog: XLR balanced, RCA
Dimensions: 1718” x 538” x 17516
Weight: 33 lbs. 1 oz.
Price: $1300

YAMAHA CORPORATION OF AMERICA
6600 Orangethorpe Ave.
Buena Park, CA 90620
(714) 522-9011
usa.yamaha.com

Read Next From Review

See all

Adblocker Detected

"Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit..."

"There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain..."