One Box CD Player or EAD with new Chord 64

Mzn I'm thinking that almost half of my HDCD's are not ID'd as such. Obviously the 'record' companies have no perception of the value that "those such as us" place upon that little HDCD logo; for me it can make or break a sale if I'm deciding between several titles because economics dictates that I can't buy them all right now. I really wish they'd do a better job promoting the format because I think it's the best thing that ever happened to consumer digital. Sure there's SACD but I'm not forking over the extra $ when you can get "almost there" with these 20 bit discs at regular prices. Pacific Microsonics rules!

I own DAC 64 and love it. It is fast, detailed and uncolored, without the harsh "digitized" sound of some upsampling DACs out there. In my experience, the DAC 64 sounds good with almost anything used as a transport. The Levinson sounds artificially warm and sluggish in comparison the the DAC 64.

Hey Buck... there is a Wadia 301 over at Canuckaudiomart.com
going for $5300 Cdn ($3400 US) located in Toronto if you are still interested in this unit. Very unfamilar with Wadia products and their prices so I can't comment on whether its a good deal or not. I have no ties to the guy who is selling - don't know him from a hole in the wall...

Buckingham - the EAD transport you want is the T-7000. That transport plus nearly any decent DAC will smoke many of the one box players people mostly dream of. If you're looking for sheer "analog" magic from digital and have a little money to spend, the T-7000 transport plus an Audio Logic 2400 DAC would be hard to beat, save you tons of money and make the Wadia 301 sound like garbage - provided you have a decent digital cable.

Oh....by the way the Theta DATA II transport is the same mechanisim as the EAD T7000 but Theta still supports that machine. The EAD is a flakey unit and the Laser Disk drawer will close prematurely so you will need to hold it open to put in a CD. This problem isn't found on the Theta DATA II.
Plus for what its worth, EAD was recently purchased by another company.

Hey Barry, I read your comments on another thread about the EAD and Theta LD players. I totally believe you, but the EAD Ultradisk 2000 with the Jeff Rowland faceplate just looks so good! I'd really hate to see it go. As it is, the Pioneer stable platter transport that it uses is superior to many other transports that I've heard and I haven't had any reliability problems and it plays all CDR's!! The reason I'm attracted to the Wadia 301 is because it has digital volume control to go directly to power amps that don't kill the bits when the volume is reduced... I appreciate all your recommendation for DACs that would go well with the EAD U2000.