Russian Tube Preamp, No Return, Here I go again

Gosh, cmariner1.
How interesting and insightful!
And on only your second post. One can but hope all your future remarks will be as profound...

Well? Well?
Any new news yet?

Nada, Nyet, Nope. It will be a nice surprise.

Meanwhile, I decided to try and find a reasonably priced CD player that is audibly superior to my existing Sony.

Found and bought an Oppo BDP-83SE (special audio edition). Sadly, the laser mechanism was shot, 'unknown disc' .. Evidently a common problem. I just dropped it off yesterday pre-paid return shipping for full refund when received.

Been looking at:

Oppo UDP-205 (dual processors)

Onkyo C-7000R (dual processors)

*my first player was Onkyo DX-7500, dual matched burr brown processors, wonderful but got so drawer wouldn't open. I now realize I should have had it fixed, but it annoyed me (I couldn't fix it myself) and was very large. 

Pioneer UDP-LX500, interesting audio options.

Denon DCD-800NE

Sony UBP-X1100ES
.......................................

CD/SACD, 2 channel only: suggestions: good/avoid????????????????

Not sure what your budget is, but I'm sure you can do better than an Oppo. They're not very good sounding.

I own a BDP83SE (from the estate of a friend), an Oppo BDP105, a Sony 2400ES, and an Ayre C5Xe-mp.  These are all at least "good" CDPs, but I like the Ayre and the BDP105 best, with an edge to the Ayre.  The BDP105 and the 205 are possibly the best DVD players ever made that are not astronomically expensive. I actually hesitate to rate the Sony, as I rarely use it for listening, and my wife uses the BDP83SE for movies most of the time. The Ayre has a possible issue if you use it to feed electrically unstable downstream components.  For max audio quality, it does not have a low pass filter on its output. Thus it puts out some "noise" at very high frequencies, like 250kHz.  This only helps the audio, but it can upset any downstream components that have a tendency to oscillate. The Sony and I presume the Oppo devices do have such filters.