What are the best CD-changers?

Chazzbo wrote: "The question is how long will it last. The Adcom would be a good deal @$700 but it and the $1K and $1.5 K CAL crap out after some time."

Everything craps out after some time!

You can buy the Adcom for much less than $700 new and you can find them used for less than $300. I've had mine for several years, use it daily, and it has yet to "crap out". And generally speaking CD only DOES make a lot of sense if you have no interest in the poor selection and high cost of SACD. Also, the Adcom GCD-700 does not require the added expense of an external DAC to "be cooking with gas." It sounds excellent out of the box with its dual 20-bit Burr Brown DACs.

Dear Chazzbo, you make a very good point about the Adcom, but consider this: For less than $700, you can buy TWO Awias and an MSB! , which with it's 24bit D/A, will soncially crush the Adcom. Then, when you are up to crushing the much bigger (read really expensive) processers, just have the Awia and MSB modded by Stan Warren (only a couple hundred of dollars)....Now with one transport, a "back up" transport, and a world class sounding D/A, we still have not spent $1k! How's that for digital bang for the buck? I wonder, is anyone out there paying attention? I sure did. (The above is EXACTLY what I did). Just trying to save you all some hard earned money.

I can only report that I am very happy with my CAL CL-10 which should be available on the used market for about $700-$800. Very good build quality, quiet, and reliable service. Has a variety of digital outs, including ATT, if you ever want to go to an outboard DAC, and you avoid the jitter issue with an all-in-1. Former Stereophile Class B, FWIW. Adcom build quality not as good, but maybe an inexpensive way to sit out the format wars.

i can't find the aiwa cd changer on the best buy website. anyone have a model number?

thanks,

gregg

The reason that you can't find the Awia changer is that as of last week it is now discontinued. Leave it up to Awia to stop making one of the truley great audiophile anomolies. I have heard that some obscure Best Buy stores do have some of their stock left, but the ones I checked were out. Good luck.