I’m going to set it up in a small room, so I don’t need a lot of power. I really don’t need a multi-disc unit either. How much would a “buget” (ha ha) system set me back?
Hrmm… DVD players that support SACD are not cheap yet, with the cheapest I know being about $250 Canadian. Then get a generic HTIB (home theatre in a box, which includes your speakers, sub and receiver). This will cost around $400 or more. However, most HTIB speakers are entry level and won’t be able to really do SACD justice. You can scale up from a $400 HTIB up to… well, the sky’s the limit.
However, to listen to SACD your receiver needs to have 5.1 analog inputs.
Just a quick SACD/DVD lesson. Your cheap DVD players will only usually have one or two audio outputs, both of them digital (coax and optical). This works great for Dolby Digital or DTS as your receiver will be decoding this digital signal, processing it, and sending it to the speakers. However, SACD is decoded in the player and the analog signal (left main, right main, left surround, right surround, centre channel plus the subwoofer) is sent through seperate outputs on the player to your receiver. Your receiver must have the analog inputs needed to accept these signals, and some cheaper receivers do not.
I hope this helps. My advice is to check out the forums (www.hometheatreforums.com is my favorite), plus visit several AV stores and talk to the reps.
ah bugger. www.hometheaterforum.com
Note to self, check URLs when previewing…