I'm out in San Francisco this week and was in between meetings earlier today out in Berkley when I stumbled upon an audiophile shop. I stopped in and ended up missing half of my meeting!
They had the new Marantz SACD hooked up to a pair of B&W 805s. The unit was $6,000 and looked very slick in the usual Marantz gold finish. The sound was INCREDIBLE! I was with an associate who admittedly listens to a boom box at home and even he could hear the difference between SACD and a standard 16/44 CD. As good as it was though, I must say that some of my Chesky 24/96 recordings sound nearly as good. But without an A/B test, it was a tough call.
The bonus came when I spotted a room full of Dynaudio speakers. I made the guy hook up the Dynaudio Contour 1.3s (I think thats the model) and actually liked them better than the B&Ws! My god these are nice sounding speakers...are the Gemini kits that good? If so, my Paradigm Ref 40s will be on the market soon!
Anyway, nice little perk to this pain in the a$$ trip that I thought I'd share. I can't wait for "universal" DVD Audio/SACD players to start to hit the market and drive the prices down. $6,000 is a bit steep for a player with no content.
Tom
[This message has been edited by tommyboy2 (edited August 09, 2000).]
They had the new Marantz SACD hooked up to a pair of B&W 805s. The unit was $6,000 and looked very slick in the usual Marantz gold finish. The sound was INCREDIBLE! I was with an associate who admittedly listens to a boom box at home and even he could hear the difference between SACD and a standard 16/44 CD. As good as it was though, I must say that some of my Chesky 24/96 recordings sound nearly as good. But without an A/B test, it was a tough call.
The bonus came when I spotted a room full of Dynaudio speakers. I made the guy hook up the Dynaudio Contour 1.3s (I think thats the model) and actually liked them better than the B&Ws! My god these are nice sounding speakers...are the Gemini kits that good? If so, my Paradigm Ref 40s will be on the market soon!
Anyway, nice little perk to this pain in the a$$ trip that I thought I'd share. I can't wait for "universal" DVD Audio/SACD players to start to hit the market and drive the prices down. $6,000 is a bit steep for a player with no content.
Tom
[This message has been edited by tommyboy2 (edited August 09, 2000).]
