Heard the Abbingdon Music research CD player?

The AM-77 amplifier also will be demonstrated.

Hi Bob, since yesterday I am the proud owner of a CD-77. I had been looking to replace my Jadis JD3 that had been showing first mechanical signs of its age and had been auditioning a few machines in the EUR 10k-range including Burmester 001, DCS P8i and Accuphase DP-78 to find that I was not going to fork out the money for the sonic improvements (if any) they could deliver. Meanwhile, Jadis had priced themselves out of my budget, so the quest began for the outsiders.
I stumbled across AMR's website at a time when they did not even have a distributor in Germany, but could arrange with the Benelux distributor for an audition in my system. What followed was an jaw-dropper as I had experienced only once before (Tidal speakers, sure enough). I know it has become a cliché but I'm going to say it anyway: we just sat bathing in music. Mind you, the CD 77 delivers each and every detail on the cd, prominently, but it doesn't single it out and throw it at you to the dreaded extent (to me at least) that you find yourself counting notes and single noises; instead, musical flow, timing and naturalness (listen to clapping of hands!) are breathtaking. Have I heard better? The Naim CD 555 perhaps, but that was not in my system and I may have been led astray by the cranked up volume, and hey, at EUR 23k it had better be very good.
Delivery took three months but, as explained in a letter of apology from AMR, this had to do with some building parts not meeting expectations and mechanical improvements (I suspect to make it fit for dropping unharmed from a roof-top). And so I come to the topic of built quality. Having had to return both my Quad prono-stage as well as my iMac within the first few months after their purchase, both assembled in China, I had become extremely sceptical of the latter - no offence meant. Not the least bit of conspiciousness appears remotely justified here, matter of fact, this is more an example of what "Made in Germany" used to stand for (look at those handmade top of the range turntables, you'll get the drift). I was happy that the distributor has delivered the machine for the audition as well as my own player personally and carried the almost 50kg shipping weight to the second floor himself.
Regards
Karel

I had the opportunity to hear a demo of the AMR on Thursday at the local dealer. Incredible build quality and the sound excellent. Large sound stage, detailed but not obnoxiously so, and quiet. An excellent presentation of the music that initiated a lot of foot tapping.

One negative from my perspective. This thing runs as hot as some tube amps I have encountered. Put my hand on the side panel and could only leave it on there for a couple of seconds. Perhaps it was a lack of ventilation from being on a middle shelf in the rack. In any case that was the only thing that bothered me about the player. Overall it's a winner.

I can put your mind at ease: it does warm up considerably, but most certainly not to the extent you describe if you give it the top shelf (for a top loader, I think that is what most of us would do)

I also believe that the entire chasse is suppose to act a heat sink so it will get hot but that is by design. I asked the same question at the show in New York. The heat sinks are basically the chasse or something like that but it shouldn't get that hot like you describe