Electrocompaniet EMC II CD Player

On second thought I fear that the above-mentioned offers could be cons, as a couple of these emails stated that the seller was a "dealer" represented in many countries, etc., but happened to be in England at the time, blah blah blah, again all in very poorly spelled English. Truly weird....
I dragged my EMC-1 UP SE into a local friendly budget-high dealer (NAD, UNICO, ARCAM, TRIANGLE, ALON, CASTLE). Their VERY good tech uncovered it, remarking that all the decent discrete parts indicated great build design. We all listened to it, as the house guru and the tech's jaws dropped. They had never heard digital sound that good. $5500? Maybe not. But discounted/used $4/3k hard to resist.
There IS a lot of there there....
So am I being too cheap about the Spider? And yes, why isn't it standard now? Hmmm.... Are they hard to get because they work, or did EC make a few to test the high-profit accessory waters as a quasi-joke. Love to hear a pair of pre/post-Spidered EMC-1s side by side....
I have NO idea what Steve Nugent's doing, but $1400 is a LOT to spend on these circuit boards. OTOH replacing all the power diodes ($20 parts) DOES make a significant improvement, so maybe swapping out some caps, etc., is a good idea too. What ARE you doing for all that money, Steve?

I tried the XLR to RCA adapter thing and perceived no difference between it and straight RCA to RCA. My pre is a Supratek Syrah. It is possible that there was a slight audible difference that I did not appreciate as I was not overly patient in assessing the adapter setup. I've also heard the EMC in another setup using both straight XLR and straight RCA and while I perceived a sonic improvement with XLR, I was not motivated to dump my Syrah.

My intentions are to first purchase and listen to the Spider on my EMC and then, at a later date, have Steve Nugent install his transport mods only. Not sure if I'll go for the full blown mods at this time.

Subaruguru, all those decent parts must be very discrete indeed. I must admit to not being a techie type, but to these eyes, there just ain't much there any way you slice it. I've also heard similar opinions from those much more technically oriented than I. Take a look under the hood of a BAT D5 cdp. Then you'll see $4500 worth of parts and solid build quality. Now, does the D5 sound as good? IMO, no, not in most areas. It does however sound better in two. Focus and the quality of voices. I'm referring to the original D5 with NOS Amperex and Siemens tubes only and not the SE version which is inferior IMO. As for those jaws dropping? I'm not surprised that those accustomed to listening to budget gear were impressed. There's no doubt the EMC will easily outperform something like a Rega Planet. It better for the $$$.

Aluminum Silver (not polished)