Esoteric DV-50: Any cdp's Significantly better?

I'm sure he will be amused to read some of the recent contributions. I have followed this thread for some time. I have concluded that Alex contributes information regarding his product only when asked. In addition he has always been helpful helping members like me with limited understanding.

If that makes me a sheep as indicatied by Eldon's comment, then so be it. Not all sheep are led to slaughter. Some were known to be led beside "still waters". Sure sounds magical and musical to me.

At 54 I am beginning to learn I do not always have to be the one making all the conclusions through trial and error. Instead I can learn through others.

I recently sold my Esoteric DV-50 in the pursuit of more in my front end. I contribute that decision to some understanding of front end, but mostly to the contributions of many on this board who have taken the time to share their experiences with their search for a better listening experience. I concluded Alex's modded 3910 was probably the best one out there now.

Some might say that I'm taking a gamble. It is no more a gamble than the countless thousands of dollars I have spent buying through auditioning and not auditioning. We all know it never quite sounds the same at home as in the audio salons. When I deide to take risks, I try to minimize my exposure to loss. I beleive I have done that by my order placed to Alex a few weeks ago. I also think if my gamble does not pay off(the unit does not meet my ear's requirements) then there will be those who will gladly buy it at a very good price. Looks like doc Luke might be someone.

When I receive it, (Alex, says I should have it in my hands by Jan.17th) I will post my experiences with it.

Here's a guy who has a "hot" item and has plenty of orders for them, and still manages to find time to answere questions and give valuable input to these forums. If you ask me, that speaks very highly to his character.

Those who have time only to whine about him probably feel more thratened by him than anything else.

Sorry for the long rant. I feel better now. Tom

BBBaaaa, bbaaaa, Richard, get a life, and learn your trade. Alex's mods are the BEST I have ever heard. Yours are not. Guess you just can't stand a guy putting this together in a couple years. You must be resting on past laurels buddy. You are wrong, each mod sounds different, unless you have poor hearing. Oh well, have fun looking stupid, and loosing customers along the way. I am sort of enjoying you blowing your image up, with your worthless garbage words.

Can't imagine that anyone would EVER place an order with Richard after reading his insulting comments.

Richard Kern's response is the stuff of which dreams are made - Alex's dreams. Nothing fuels the fires of interest, publicity and commercial success like a bit of sniping/outrage - as the success of tabloids tells us - and Mr Kern, in spitting the dummy (binky, in American) or throwing his toys out of the crib in a tantrum, has done just that. Calling potential buyers blathering, blind sheep is not smart. While I can understand Mr Kern's consternation, and applaud his honesty, I believe he has not helped Audiomod. But he probably knows that and let's give him the benefit of the doubt - he fell on his sword deliberately, on principle:)
In reality, Alex has not done anything that small manufacturers of any ilk, notably cables, have not done and continue to do.
According to Mr Kern, we, of the woolly,(pun intended) cerebrally challenged community of A'gon consumers, need a dual dose of censorship and independence, so as not to be misled by the self-promotion of modders/manufacturers. I disagree. I find the contributions of the likes of Alex and Richard Kern, and any other original designers, to be invaluable. And I would use Ralph Karsten as the role model.

711, your humor is contageous. Yet, let's all try to avoid playing at 'MY DAC'S BIGGER'N YOURS!"

Doc Luke, Audiophilia Nervosa is an extremely debilitating hereditary condition. It is more formally known as Degenerative Audiophilic Chorea (DAC). It was first recognized and described in 1989 by a team of European neurologysts, audiophiles and philosophers of music lead by Gavronsky and Pugnetti of the Istituto Don Gnocchi in Milan.
See: Aloysius Q. Schmaltzenstein Gavronsky, Dr. Luigi Pugnetti et Al. Environmental triggers and sex-linked predisposition in late onset adventitious Audiophilic Dementia (Acta Medica Refutata, vol 35, No. 4, pp. 435 - 459. Appenzell, 1989).
The authors describe DAC as a acute disturbance of the central nervous system, usually having an onset in very early middle age and characterized by involuntary muscular movements, uncontrollable usage of credit cards, increasingly severe and expensive delusions, disastrous lapses of financial common sense, and general progressive intellectual deterioration, accompanied by often mewlings, drewlings and ritualistic genuflection and prostration in front of any gleaming audio component.
DAC attacks the cells of the basal ganglia, clusters of nerve tissue deep within the brain that govern coordination, as well as the cortex, which is expected to govern common sense.
The onset is insidious and inexorably progressive; no treatment is known.
Psychiatric disturbances range from personality changes involving compulsive purchase or modification of audio equipment, in the abscence of which the sufferer experiences apathy and irritability, to manic depressive or schizophreniform episodes when away from one's audio components for any significant amount of time.
Motor manifestations include flicking movements of the upper extremities, towards credit cards and compulsive signing of any audio sales slips, a lilting gait, in front of high-end audio stores, and motor impersistence (inability to sustain a motor act such as tongue protrusion), unless ever-more-frequent and progressively expensive upgrades to the patient's audio system are applied..
In 1989 the gene responsible for the disease was located by Schmaltzenstein-Gavronsky and Pugnetti; within that gene a small segment of code is, for some reason, copied over and over.
Genetic and audio counseling is extremely important, since 50% of the male offspring of an affected parent inherit the gene, which inevitably leads to the disease if the subject is exposed to any high-end system worth of such an appellation.
An autosomic recessive form of the disorder likely also exists, but is very rare, according to the scant epidemiology studies of DAC, as far less females than males are affected. The prognosis is rather bleak. Sufferers invariably end their days divorced, indigent, externally semicatatonic, with a silly grin on their faces, while immersed in a permanent REM state, dreaming of evermore extravagant system upgrades.