Dcs Verdi VS Verdi Encore

That was not the case... Sony in their infinite wisdon in the late 90's decided to no longer supply laser assembly pickups to any other company which left Philips, Pioneer and Teac pretty much the suppliers and Phillips was the cheapest OEM supplier so that is the reason for their widespread use. They are far from the best pickup with Teac VRDS probably being the best out there but far more expensive to purchase in bulk. For instance, Wadia has used the Teac units in their highest end players and the Pioneer stable platter in the middle level ones.

Cheers,

I bought my Verdi used from one dealer in Audiogon and the unit has been sent for check up at dcs Usa. They said the drive board was defective and had it replaced. After only 3 months (less than 100 hours) my Verdi started to have difficulty reading the cd and sacd again. My local technician believes it was the laser pickup and replaced it with a brand new one. It still doesn't work. At which point I start to wonder if I should look for the Verdi Encore which I understand has fewer problems. It turned out the problem wasn't the laser pickup, just some particular wiring that's gone bad. Cost of the new wire? About 5 Usd.