I am considering modifieng my Sony sacd player. Being that this can be quite expensive,$600+,I'm wondering whether the cost is justifiable. Does anyone have any experience with mods? Do they really give a discernable improvement to playback performance or is this another snake oil pitch. Any help in this matter would be appreciated.

Hello Asher
Which Sony and who is doing the mods?

I've heard a Philips SACD1000 modified with tube output stage and various other tweaks and it was one of the most incredible sources I've ever heard. (I have a stock Philips SACD1000 which is pretty great in its own right.)

Yes, Arthur, it's a snakeoil pitch. Modern players provide flawless reproduction of the discs that they play. Any "mod" that actually resulted in a change of sound would therefore by definition have to degrade the fidelity of reproduction.

In this same connection, Arthur, you might also consider Alan's discussion of players in the budgeting article in the latest issue of the newsletter, if you haven't already done so.

It's a Sony scd2000es sacd player.I don't remember the various mods people but there were a # of them that I checked out using Google,and they were all asking for quite a bundle.