CD / SACD players and transports — ONIX Zenith XST20

The Zenith XST20 is an SACD and CD transport from ONIX, a name that began in Brighton, England, in the 1980s and is now run jointly with Shanling. It belongs to the Zenith series, together with the Zenith XDA20 DAC at USD 2,399, which is designed to pair with it, and the Zenith XMT20 streaming transport introduced in January 2026. The XST20 was launched in spring 2025 and shipped from April at USD 2,299. It has no DAC and is meant to feed an external converter.

Key specs that matter

It plays single-layer and hybrid SACD, CD and MQA-CD. The mechanism is a Sanyo HD870, loaded from the top with a disc clamp or glass puck. The master clock is a 48.1584 MHz crystal oscillator, and the linear power supply uses a low-noise 25 VA Talema toroidal transformer. An I2S output on an HDMI socket carries native DSD64 from SACD and 44.1 kHz from CD, with 10 switchable pinout modes. Optical, coaxial, BNC and AES/EBU outputs carry SACD as DSD64 through DoP or D2P and CD at 44.1 kHz, and a USB-B output carries CD only. A 3.4 inch capacitive touchscreen and an infrared remote operate the unit. The CNC-machined aluminium chassis measures 320 x 240 x 72 mm and weighs 5.2 kg, in black or titanium silver.

Engineering and use context

I2S over HDMI keeps the clock and audio data on separate conductors, but makers wire the socket differently, so an FPGA handles the output and switches between the pinout modes to match most I2S converters. The same output passes the DSD layer of an SACD without packing it into PCM frames. Because the DSD stream of SACD is normally not sent over S/PDIF, the XST20 uses DoP or D2P packing on its coaxial, optical, BNC and AES/EBU outputs so that converters with those inputs can still receive the high-resolution layer. Top loading removes the motorised drawer, and the clamp or glass puck holds the disc on the spindle. A linear supply with a toroidal transformer produces little stray magnetic field and no switching noise near the drive and clock. The compact half-width chassis matches the other Zenith components, so the transport and the XDA20 can be stacked.

Pairing

The XDA20 DAC is the intended partner, linked through I2S for native DSD. Converters with coaxial, BNC, optical or AES/EBU inputs receive both formats, while a DAC connected only through USB can play CD.

Alternatives

The ONIX OC93 is a CD player and streamer with an AKM AK4497 DAC and a Philips CDM4 drive.