California Audio Labs – Icon Mk II CD Player - HDCD

But yes, the ICON is impressive, enough to make us wonder about these refinements!

1- an HDCD unit will have an HDCD indicator lamp on the front panel

2- to see if it's a power boss unit, pop open to he lid and see if there's a small piggy back PC board stuffed with capacitors above the main PC board. If there's a piggy back board, it's a power boss unit 

With the company no longer in business and the age of these players, do they have a good reliability history to be a viable purchase option? Would you buy one for $500 or its better to look for something new for that price? If so, what? I'm particularly concerned about the transport mechanism on these older CD players.  

A low mileage, well maintained unit should give you many additional years of listening pleasure. That being said, even newer peices sometimes require service at some point. Good to know that if ever in the future a hurdle is encountered, there appears to be a reliable service option for these tank-built classic players:

http://www.approvedaudioservice.com/cal.html

CAL's 5CD Changer had a bad reputation and was buggy. The later generatons of the new PowerBoss HDCD ICON mkII have always been solid. CAL got lots of practice initially modifying older ICONs and perfected the process that resulted in thier flagship ICON mkII HDCD PowerBoss; I was an authorized dealer of this line for some time and never had a return. The carousel changer was a different story.