i wasn't really interested in sacd. it just happened that some high end players featured sacd.
i would have loved to audition a tri-vista, the dealer in houston has none on the floor. he will order it for you, but if you don't like it...tough.
i started this exercise when my naka cd2 threw craps....no repair parts available. so sad. it was a sweet little player/changer. i acquired it when it was first released in 1990. never had a problem playing a disc until the end. read 'em instantly. and though manufactured long before cd-r's, never failed to recognize and play those i created with a hhb-cdr850 or the tascam cd4000mk2.
on someone's advice, i replaced it with a my rants sa-8260. bought it from music direct...no dealers in houston. nice looking. completely unpredictable performance. the only discs that it would read repeatedly were sacd's. commercial cd's and my cd-r's were a different sty.
in my effort to vet the my rants, i went to the only high-end store in houston. linn, arcam, nad. also a mf dealer, but no auditioning components. store didn't have the latest arcam cd player. and told me that it didn't intend to have one for auditioning.
clearly this was a linn store. i liked the ikemi. and wanted to demo it at my residence with my gear[audition room was optimized for linn]. when i made that request, the owner of audio concepts went all iceburgish. and by the way, had i wanted to own that bit of kit that day....uh,uh...couldn't have walked out with one. NO INVENTORY. I COULD GIVE THEM MY MONEY, BUT THEN I WOULD HAVE TO WAIT TO OWN IT. what is wrong with that picture?
one of the apsects of the my rants that drove me crazy was the horrible design of its transport tray. i still cannot believe that anyone would design such a thing. neither can i believe that no reviewer notes it. it is so horrible.
the linn ikemi had the best transport. quiet and silent. the bottom-rung arcam was flimsy. i don't know if the top-rung arcam transport was better because audio concepts didn't have one on the floor for auditioning. REALLY, HOW IS IT THAT ARCAM ALLOWS FOR THAT?
i had to return the my rants. the one that i was shipped was a thoroughly lousy device. and of course, music direct reported - no problems found. hmmmmm. i wish that i had made a video of its dysfunction.
so, i was in LA for easter. musical fidelity and arcam had a dealer there. good. perhaps they had units set up for auditioning and i could survey them.
on monday a week ago i did that. the dealer was a big surprise. LA, capital of the entertainment industry, right? i expected a dealer in the MONIED, western sectors of LA: SANTA MONICA, BEVERLY HILLS, WEST LA, HOLLYWOOD. wrong. only dealer was on western south of beverly blvd - korea town.
not the best facility, but at least they had units for auditioning. listened to the mf A5 CD player. played through top-drawer stuff. halcro, wilson, i cannot recall the preamp. and i wasn't whelmed. what really unimpressed me was how lousy the transport was. flimsy. noisy.
didn't sound as good as my old naka. neither was the sound and transport better than the little $150 universal pioneer that i have been experimenting with since atkinson heralded it. and not as good as the hhb cdr-850, which is at its heart a pioneer transport.
disenchanted with mf, i noticed that the dealer also handled arcam and had the latest top-end arcam cd player on its demo rack. the one that my local dealer did not have. so, i asked to audition it.
it wasn't connected, but connections were made to play it through the same components. and this arcam had to have been brand new as it still carried the clear plastic over its display.
plugged in. fitted the patricia barber disc that i had been using to audition the mf player, arcam wouldn't read it. tried all the pat barber discs in my kit. wouldn't read any one of them. so, we tried the store's cd's. wouldn't read them either.
as i left the store, the salesman kept haranguing me that it had worked on saturday.
perhaps.
then i stumbled upon a sony es dealer on wilshire in santa monica. had a ns-999es player. i really don't have an interest in sony gear. on the other hand, i must say that it had a transport tray as solid as the linn ikemi.
couldn't play it though because there was no amp.
15 years ago, when i last bought my audio gear, the store, b&m electronics[sic] sold naka, mcintosh, yamaha, b&w, etc. they had everything auditionable. they had stock.
today, i find no full-range of auditionables. no stock.
the only player that i have auditioned that has a strong transport is the linn ikemi. but to own it i have to deal with the houston linn dealer. it might happen. but not desirably.
unless i can audition a player, i shall not acquire it.
concluding, trying to acquire a replacement for my naka is driving me crazy.
savvy?