High-end Sony CD/SACD Players ??

Yamaha B-2

registered user
Have decided I want to up-grade my digital source and am giving some serious consideration to an older Sony CD or SACD player. Back when ES meant "as good as it gets" with CD or SACD players. I'm thinking something from the first half of the '90s for CD or last half of the '90s for SACD. Sony has really taken a crap since then and I won't own anything newer.

Does anyone out there own anything with an ES on the end from the very late '80s through the mid to late '90s and what do you think? Thanks.
 
not really what you are looking for but...

i had the 222ES, how shall i say it? IT SUCKED. poor build, clunky noisemaker, CRAP. the 7 series ES is nice, heavy, copper chassis... way better. consider the pioneer elite too, very nice older unit but no SACD, not familiar with their newer stuff. I had the PD-65 Elite and it was solid and took more abuse than you can imagine.
Tyler
 
Was the 222ES made after, say '98? Was it unreliable? How was the music it made? Suffice it to say that you didn't care for it.
 
I have a Sony SCD-777ES. I'm very happy with it's SACD performance and the CD playback isn't too bad but then I don't care for most any seedee I've heard so can't say where this Sony stands compared to others. I do really like the build quality of this thing and feel it was a good investment - this player seems to have come from an era when Sony was attempting a top-notch player to showcase what SACD could do, all the models that came after it struck me as having a major dose of 'cost reduction'.

Another nice thing about the SCD-1/777 series is that they seem to be regarded as a great platform for mods that apparently elevate them to a much higher level for both SACD and regular CD. I might go down this road someday.
 
YB2,

SCD-1/777ES is 1998/99 > 2002 if I'm not mistaken ; it came along "1" series (TA-E1, TA-N1, SCD-1 etc). Fairly indepth reviews on the Stereophile website (if one can believe a mag')...
These are the last serious Sony digital sources and the SCD-777ES is the only other CD player I'd buy.

As for all ES series (or any other manufacturer's lineups), X222ES doesn't rank among "worth having/using" - keep to the near-totl "5" units or, of course, the real TOTL "7".
 
I had a XA777ES and found the SACD playback to be decent, but the redbook was unacceptable, so I wouldn't recommend it.
 
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