EMMS Labs CDSA vs. AA Capitole Reference SE

I'd interpret it as nonsensical and meaningless without context. :)

One reviewer dubbed the EMM player 'the single-ended triode of CD players'.

I haven't heard it.

I have owned the AA Capitole (not reference SE) and currently own the CDSAse. In a nutshell, on SACD for me EMM is incredible. On CD the EMM & Capitole are close. The description of the "tube" like sound of the AA is actually more correct than not IME. The AA has a beautiful musicality on CD that was great. It did lack bass and dyanamics. The EMM is not SS in sound but pulls away from this stereotype. The Reference SE is also supposed to be improved of the original in this regard. All in all, the EMM is truly an SACD player 1st and CD player 2nd with no covering up a bad recording or poor CD conversion etc. The AA is slightly more forgiving and might be better for some. I honestly believe there is no player that does it all.

Zenieth, in few words :if you have a SS concept based system and ypu want to add an amount of mellow you prefer the AA Capitol cd playe.
In case you have a''tube concept''based system ,you add the transparent and neutral EMM CDSA one bocx player.
BTW i recently would to change acoustic concept and i passed to the SS components , so a trade with my EMM CDSA and the yours AA SE Capitol Ref is acceptable whenever you desire.

Zenieth,

i owned EMM Labs for years (have had the CDSA in my system) and did own an AA Capitol Mk2 back 'in the day'. the EMM Labs is going to be higher performance and if your system has a natural balance i would recommend the CDSA. it is less forgiving and tolerant of any recording that might tend to be a bit hard sounding.....and as dgad mentions it is particularly good at SACD.

i don't want to get off topic; but i might recommend thinking about getting a digital player with hirez server DAC capabilities if you are going to be making a change. it's possible that the latest CDSA has this capability but if it does i'm not familiar with that.