Okay......best single box reference CD player


I currently own a CEC TL-1 transport, along with a dcs Delius and Purcell upsampler.....what one box CD player out there can deliver dynamics, transpareny, smoothness and inner detail that will outperform my current set up. Meridian 808....???? Please let me know your thoughts....
garebear
Another vote for the Playback Designs MPS-5. it is set up to work as a DAC for a music server so is quite future proof. it uses an Esoteric VRDS transport. it is also software upgradable.

here is a link to a review of the MPS-5.

[url]http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?rdgtl&1212275915[/url]
Bar,

i don't know the answer to your question. it is very quiet and always reads the disc quickly and the first time.

i much prefer it to the Philips drive that was in my EMM Labs CDSD.
I have not compared it with players mentioned in your setup. I can tell you what I do know. I do know it is better than Simaudio Eclipse, and better dynamics than Esoteric ($6000 unit DV50) and Marantz SA-11s1. Andromeda has fantastic dynamic contrast, great detail and transparency, and a big sound, i.e. turn volume up and it will play very load with no distortion. It is $13.5K retail in USA due to poor dollar levels at this time. Andromeda also has a large offboard power supply.

Sorry my comparison is not more apples and apples, with higher price players. I did listen to X03SE in a store system, had not as much dynamic contrast as Andromeda, but sounded detailed.

I will go out on a limb and state that Andromeda CD player has one of the best dynamic range and contrast of any. It seems dead neutral as far as balance (warm v clinical). It has great detail but I have not compared it with the over $10k players, so I cannot state that it is best. Same with transparency, its great but no megabuck CD comparisons made. Thanks.

Bill