Review: Prt. II SONY XA5400es A/HDMI v. XA9000ES i.LINK/A

Posted by JohnDoe1 on April 18, 2011 at 14:39:21

Dear readers, part II:

Well after a short fight with Sony over what has to be the most expensive 1.5 meter cable in the world - $45 and on backorder; i.LINK IEEE - I went with a different approach - B&H Photo in NY, what a great bunch of folks to work with. i.LINK cable in 4 days - USPS - $12 inc. S/H.

Now for the best part: the sound:

SONY DA7100ES - ilink to XA9000es:

Speakers again, tuned tannoy DC2 with the same samsung EQ and MC MQ1004 via the 2 channel this time only. I have not tried multichannel yet.

Well...what can I say...does it best the XA5400es on Analog Balanced or even the 88Khz or 176Khz LPCM - well NO. Frankly NO.

I tried Bach Piano - SONY Black DSD Release SACD only...while I did hear the pianist humming the melody a bit; yes it was wide and fine sound; H.A.T.S was working and the digital amp - with EQ BUT again no way to balance the output and it was o.k.

Some hiss on the outputs with no input - SACD on pause or stop.

One has to be very close to the speaker to hear this.

AS for i.LINK, let's see one cable v. 2 or 5.1; that's a plus - The cable was a very high end shielded on and the Monster Power center was fine...no issues there, i.LINK sync. in seconds and the DA7100es recognized the XA9000es no problems.

I would rank i.LINK nice to have but not great; the piano sounded like piano no ?, the music wonderful, BUT not engaging.

As for using the HDMI or even balanced on the XA5400es - that SACD/CD machine is the best - the sony XA9000es is still just very dry in presentation and dark - I need to use it some more but I could not get the sound I wanted and have yet to try Symphony or quartet or even Jazz.

Now as for the XA9000es and Santana Abraxis - well amazing but still dark and dry...

I think i.link and H.A.T.S. with low jitter if anyone could even hear that is fine, but I really enjoy the analog XA5400es and balanced on the Cambridge 840a, then HDMI 88kHZ v. 176Khz on the DA71000ES, then the XA9000es in any fashion - it just presents a perfect sound, no harshness just perfect and polite.

I.LINK is Not my cup of tea.

Tonight I am going to try a Blind A/B/X through a switcher I have that can be cabled right to the listening position just moving betw. sources. Maybe I will be able to enlist a volunteer to wire the RCA's it only does RCA not HDMI or i.LINK and move between the sources with Miles Davis Kinda Blue - SACD - I have 2 copies.

Bottom line for the $ the XA5400es is it for me.

The Cambridge 840A with the Class A/XD circuit is perfect and flawless...lots of feature for the $.

The Mcintosh MQ1004 is a great add-on to the room eq system of the samsung parametric EQ.

SO, 4 20+ hours spent and some $$$ spent and tests done...I am glad all this was given to me at close out prices and someone else paid the bill (WINK: ex's).

I think I have reached the proper end of this journey with Sony and the Tjoeb 99' I still have around for the family room system.

This month to end:

I donated 600 jazz, rock and classical CDs via an Escient fireball system and 2 SONY CD Changers to a Marine retiree who had no music in his life.

The digital copy was given to a young man who is just starting out and via iPOD: about 10K songs. He has not graduated from college yet.

I stuck with about 100 SACDs and about 160 CDs I really love. Of course all the 600 CD music is on my ipod and digital phone for 3rd backup in case the young man or marine have a problem.

The estimated cost of the music v. gear is about even...I spent about $5K for each. I got about 12 years enjoyment out of most of the music and about 5 years or more out the Audio system. All cables are bone stock el-cheapo grande...I can't tell any difference and frankly I still use the Original Monster cable RCAs I had probably 20+ years ago and they are crud free and basically good stuff. I probably paid $10 for them back when, maybe 1987?

The SONY ES is really a good all round value. I did check into and audition the Marantz Reference SACD/CD players with the filters, but honestly could not wait weeks for the dealer to work out a price and delivery. I put about 3 hours on the system at the dealer; but they were very hard to work with; wanted to do a trade and sell via audiogon and rebate the proceeds back to me as a store credit deposit toward the Mid level Marantz SA-##s unit.

I hope this helps someone. I was thinking maybe I could record the output of each source live but that would probably violate copyrights and most likely would present legal issues.

Well thanks for reading my digest and enjoy the music.

John

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Topic - Review: Prt. II SONY XA5400es A/HDMI v. XA9000ES i.LINK/A - JohnDoe1 14:39:21 04/18/11 (0)

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