Sony SCD-C555ES SACD changer
It was a late Friday afternoon in May and I wasn't having much luck getting into Sony's multichannel SACD demo room at the Home Entertainment 2001 Show. Surely, as a member of the audio press and a freelance writer for Stereophile, I should have no trouble. Not this time. After several polite "Nos," a Sony consultant managed to snare for me the last ticket of the day.
Sony SCD-XA777ES multichannel SACD/CD player
"Sony. Sony. No Baloney."
Sony SCD-XA9000ES SACD player
Sony's first flagship Super Audio CD player was the two-channel SCD-1, reviewed">http://www.stereophile.com/showarchives.cgi?180">reviewed by Jonathan Scull in November 1999. (The $5000 SCD-1 had balanced outputs; the cosmetically different but otherwise identical $3500 SCD-777ES had unbalanced outputs and was reviewed">http://www.stereophile.com/showarchives.cgi?346">reviewed by Chip Stern in April 2001.) Sony's second-generation flagship player, the $3000 SCD-XA777ES, was reviewed">http://www.stereophile.com/showarchives.cgi?491">reviewed by Kalman Rubinson in January 2002, and added multichannel capability with channel-level adjustment and bass management. Sony's third-generation flagship is the SCD-XA9000ES, also priced at $3000, which adds time-delay adjustment for its multichannel analog outputs and is presented in a smart new styling that Sony calls "Silver Cascade." The disc drawer and the most frequently used controls are on the angled top half of the brushed-aluminum front panel; in the lower half are the display, the headphone jack and its volume control, and the multifunction control knob.
T+A MP 3100 HV SACD player/streaming DAC
At the 2019 AXPONA, I took part in one of my first official meetings, as editor of Stereophile, with members of the manufacturing community: the German company T+A. They were presenting in the room of Texas dealer Lone Star Audio, which was owned by the late Jim Hench. They had a corner hallway to themselves: two rooms and, at the time when I arrived, a hallway table brimming with coffee and pastries. Fortuitous timing.
Technics DVD-A10 DVD-Audio player
If you search for "DVD-A" on this websitehttp://www.stereophile.com">website;, you can get the whole confusing story of the format, which has been the subject of one of the strangest format launches of recent years: First it's on, then it's off. The watermark is audible. No, it's not. Oops, it is—back to square one. There's software, there's no software. (There's not—only one demo disc officially available in September 2000, when I wrote this review!)
Toshiba SD-9200 DVD-Audio/Video player
From the vantage point of a devout music lover, two-channel audio is more satisfying and more inclusive than ever these days. In terms of resolution, clarity, linearity, transparency, soundstaging, frequency extension, and sheer performance value, aspiring audiophiles have never had it so good.