Modwright Transporter VS Opera Droplet 5.0 CDP.

Thank you for the heads up, Grant! Sorry for the late response, I took a short summer vacation...

My honest opinion of Consonance is that majority of the components sound at least pretty good. However, there are some specific products/lines that have some issues in terms of reliability, which I would steer clear of, the current Droplet 5.0 with Philips CD transport/laser assembly NOT being one of them. In fact, that particular model, in my experience, is the most reliable CD player Consonance has produced, the original Reference 2.2 MKI (with Philips transport and volume knob on the rear panel) being up there as well. For the most part, the Consonance tube amplifiers are also both good sounding and reliable.

For the record, based on my friend Paul Folbrecht's advice, I picked up an Audio Note CD (an older CD2.1x) player, and it is easily the best digital I've ever had in my system. The sense of being alive won me over in a big way. One day in the future, I'll pick up one of the aforementioned Audio Note DACs as well, and move the player to my second system.

By the way, if this thread http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/amp/messages/14/147594.html resonates with you, you might be interested in contacting me offline regarding the aforementioned products I represented.

Thanks to all who contributed. I have just finished a trial of the Droplet and will be sending it back. Initially it proved to be quite impressive but in a relatively short period of time became tiring and irritating. I think it is the upsampling implementation that lets it down; too digital and brittle for my liking. Nothing for it but to try and get my hands on a transporter and give it a go.
Of interest to me was how poorly the Droplet with a 24/192 upsampling DAC performed against a non-upsampling, 1 x oversampling 16 bit Audio Note DAC.
It really isn't the size of the dog in a fight but the size of the fight in the dog. I live and learn.

Well, I've previously never heard anyone describe the Droplet 5.0 "tiring and irritating". In that quest to sound non-digital, most feel the company erred on the rich and full-bodied side. But (unfortunately) knowing how often Consonance changes their components in production, perhaps that model has undergone more "revision" than just the digital in? Of course, these things are always dependent on the system/person.

At any rate, your conclusion lines up perfectly with what I said in my first post in this thread, the Audio Note CD player I picked up clearly beats the Droplet 5.0 to my ears, with the Droplet 5.0 being head and shoulders the best (from the perspective of both sonic and reliability) CDP Consonance produces.

Don't feel bad, instead rejoice in the fact that you've ended up with the best player for your system! And, at lower cost, no doubt.