Raysonic 168

I believe the 168 has a volume control enabling you to run it directly into a
power amp without an intervening active preamp/linestage. This may not be a
good idea, sonically. Saturday I took my Raysonic 128 over to a friend's house
to play it through his passive linestage. Sounded totally unlike itself -- scrawny,
threadbare, glary -- and I quickly reinserted it into my CJ Premier 17LS2 when I
got home to see if it was damaged. Nope, sounded great. But it definitely
doesn't play well with passives, or at least this particular one that was custom-
built by my friend. His own CD player/DAC sounded just great through this
passive, BTW. Dave

the 168 has the Volume as stated above, might be good, might not work with all systems... It also has a philips transport vs. the Sony unit used in the 128.. it has orange lights opossed to blue... It has what seems to be a different model DAC chip, but also loses the HDCD capability it seems... As for the price I believe the 128 is 1699 unless they upped it, and the 168 is like 2399... Worth 700 more? Well a real serious A-B test would need to be done, but unless you need the volume control, and don't want HDCD, it seems the 128 might still be the best value and probably sounds just as good.

I think the current MSRP for the 128 is $1850. I can't see the additional money for the 168, given what you say, but it would be nice to see some review comparisons.

Well, FWIW, the 128 uses the same DAC as my $500 Rotel player, IIRC, the BB 1732. I cannot bring myself to upgrade to a CDP that uses the same DAC I have in my entry level player, even though, due to other aspects of design, it might be worlds better. At least the 168 has a newer, more SOTA chip.

Bondmanp, Well I will say this... The Dac Chip has very little to do with ultimate sound, some are a bit different but not better... Power supplies, Analog output stage, OPamps, Clocks, Transport, yes those are the key elements in todays digital, One dac chip vs another is pennys on the dollar, In other words that single silicone chip is not the greatest cost by far, one DAC chip can cost 18 dollars, and one that everybody thinks is suppose to be better is only about 3 dollars more.

I have heard far bigger differences in Analog stages that you actually hear, not the translator chip, all Dacs obviously have advanced quite a bit since the 1990 10,000 dollar machine right? So would you take a 1990 10,000 dollar machine and believe it sounds better than a 2000 dollar machine using a newer chip?

Possibly, possibly not... Not, as for being a more advanced DAC chip goes, do you really believe that BB has really advanced the chips that much that will now translate into better sound from the year 2000 till' now? Just illustrating a point here is all, not an argument, don't get hung up on the DAC chip, I have heard 3 dollar chips sound as good as 5000 dollar CD players. When you buy an outboard DAC for example, it has to do with the better designed power supplies, Analog output stage, better capacitors and parts, their are many cheap excellent DAC chips, some better than others, but normally these days don't equate to better sound in the end. A good design from somebody like Wadia for example could build a machine around a Really Cheap BB chip and still make it sound better than 99% of lesser machines with cheap transports, power supplies, Analog parts etc...

By the way I have had Several Hi res machines, With 24/96 top of the line Chips etc... SACD, DVD-A ... And I have heard 1996 well designed machines with 16 bit DAC chips run circles around them. So this is the least of our worries.