Most "Non-Digital" Sounding CDP

the marantz 8260 & sa14 for "reasonable" priced cdp's. the redbook is pretty amazing and you get sacd to boot.

mike

I have a new Resolution Audio Opus 21 and the word that immediately comes to mind when listening to this player is "non-digital". It is smooth and natural sounding. Instruments sound like they should, there's nice decay, and it captures the ambiance of recordings.

The most of dissapointment of so-called the most analogue device may come after looking-up inside the box finding simple cheap DAC-chips(can't be expencive by default as generic production units) and CD-Rom drive unit.

The analogue domain after-DAC makes all differences in digital playback that's why "modders" such as Dan Wright and Stan Warren take a simple generic $100...200 components, recap it, replace to one-piece rectifiers in PS as their standard procedure. Going this way will give you "analogue" with only three digits instead of 5 or even 4.

As to quality "analogue" ones I guess that Electrocompaniet EMC1 is a good contender but certainly overoverpriced. Infact, if Electrocompaniet were Burmester or MBL it would cost accordingly so name is the largest price figure here.

My GamuT CD1R approaches live performances at times. I played the opera Tosca after returning from the live performance of the same and was very impressed by the simularity. Associated equipment includes Pass X2.5 preamp, GamuT amp, Chapman Speakers, JDPS Lab wires.

Funny, no one mentioned the Audiomeca Mephisto 2 X.