More CD Player selection woes

Tweak1: What was your experience with the Lector. I think I want a CDP 0.06 Player. Here's an email I got from someone who sold Raysonic:

"We did sell the Raysonic products, but I cannot recommend this tube cd player to you. It is my opinion, that these Chinese products such as Raysonic, Cayin, Melody are simply inferior imposters. They have sizzle but no steak. Too many problems, they are built from inferior components and are copies, poor copies of other products in the marketplace. Again, they may look good, but the sound they produce is harsh and solid state sounding. Here is the deal, there is no need to buy Chinese when you can buy European products such as Ayon Audio from or say Lector Audio from Italy."

Whatta Think???

Utter nonsense, Ebuzz. Reminds me of the dealer in the Southwest who
supposedly sold Raysonics, bad-mouthed the player to me before I bought
mine, and didn't even have one to begin with, according to the distributor I
called. You might check the dealer's bona fides (the one you quote) with Quest
for Sound, the U.S.distributor.

I've heard that the Ayon is not an actual "European product" but is built in the
same Chinese facility as the Raysonic -- it certainly looks that way. 'Course
it's twice the price. "Harsh and solid-state sounding?" Another
laugh. Dave

Given that you want your cd player to sound similar to your analog rig, I wonder if you'll be happy with a Cambridge. I've owned a couple higher end Grados and the Cambridge house sound is not at all like Grados warm and comfy sound. Given your preferences, perhaps you'd find a Rega Apollo to your liking. Not sure if the software glitches that affected the first batch of latest generation Apollos has been corrected though. Also, if the Marantz Sa11 is a bit too spendy, the SA 15 is a good substitute I'd sure consider, within your range at used prices. MusicDirect has them on sale, marked down from $2k to $1400. It could be argued that all cd players in the price range discussed add or subract something. To expect neutrality at the $1k price point isn't realistic IMO. The one thing that worries me about cd players imported from China is the possibility of losing long term repair support for them if the importer's market position changes. Some companies have been pretty well established and wouldn't worry me too much, but others??? Do your research. Cd players have been the most trouble prone product category for me by far, so I'm leary.

I aquired a Shanling T-80 about one year ago that uses two output tubes. The Chinese stock tubes projected a very bright presentation, but once upgraded to either WE396a or GE JAN5670s the player became as smooth and almost as detailed as my TT allowing me to enjoy both with equal time. Sadly no CDP will make up for some of the older CD recordings and their intrinsic shortcomings.

For what its worth, I've found a tubed DAC can be advantageous in terms of tailoring the resulting sound via use of different tubes rather than switching out entire players at much greater cost. The differences from tube to tube is really quite substantial, and it is not expensive to try different tubes. I like having that flexibility in controlling how things sound. Through different interconnects into the mix and you can have a lot of control on how things sound in the end rather than having to put all your eggs in on basket hoping it sounds the way you want.