Why buy older digital gear?

I still find my circa 1985 dbx DX3 cdp to be better than the bulk of current big-name players. Looking at the boards in my dbx, its easy to note that it relies on built-up circuits with quality components and parts. These have been largely replaced with generic IC's on contemporary units.

Designers of the older gear had more opportunity to actually design the audio circuits, rather than assemble parts from what has become a largely commodity based electronics industry. I'm sure the DAC chips are better now, but I also think this does little good when combined with minimal analog circuits consisting of lowest-cost parts.

I would, however, be very careful about buying a used cdp because of the mechanical wear and alignment issues. Many, like my dbx, are now orphans with no parts available for the drive or laser head sections. Every time I hear a skip, I realize the unavoidable end grows nearer.

as a backup player. It is surprisingly good. It performs as well as a lot of today's big buck players. I hide it so people think it is the Wadia playing.

The original question was why spend $500-$600 on an old CDP that was high end 8-10 years ago, instead of buying a new technology unit in the same price range.
It seem to me that while the older high end models use outdated dacs, they still used very high quality analogue outputs. The new budget CD players might use current dacs, but they skimp on the other components to keep the price down.

-Patrick

Another advantage of older digital technology is the VERY STEEP fall off in price. I just bought a Classe' DAC1 for <25% of list. I have a CAL CL-10 changer driving it thru aes/ebu digital cable and the DAC drives a BAT pre operating in balanced mode. The sound is very smooth, musical, vibrant, dare I say analog like (my analog rigs, while not high end, NEVER sounded remotely this good). Don't get hooked on specs, go with the sound. While it is true that 10 year old digital might not be all that good a value, how about 2-3 year old? That's where I am putting my $, and I'm thrilled with the sound.

This is a very good D/A I am also using it with my old Karik and when I compared it to the Numerik it was no contest for the Alfa. Also have in mind that you can upgrade it for $450 so it will not be outdated. For less than $1000.00 you will be able to compete with anything up to $2500.