Romulus CD player--

Kana I give up with as you just like to argue. This site has a few like you and I took the bait. Too bad. Enjoy your system and I will mine. I am sure we both have more important priorities.

Those interested in a world class stand/footers for you gear, these Apprentice stands are an excellent choice. I will order a couple more for my preamp and amps. The whole topic of mechanical grounding is most interesting and these stands incorporate state of the art wisdom in their design and materials choice.

I owned the Aesthetix Callisto Signature and Io non signature for 5+ years. The Signature update is not that big of a deal when it comes to parts updates. Caps updated to Dynamicaps….big deal! They were fine a decade ago but nothing special now. For a "Signature" product to use these as the top capacitor is questionable. And a handful of resistors in "ideal" locations….again, big deal. And the price markup for the parts "updates" is crazy.

The major improvement is to 86 all the Sovteks in these units and play a combination of Tele, Mullard and RCA. A non-sig unit with rolled tubes will easily destroy a signature unit with stock tubes. I suspect the same is for the Aesthetix digital gear.

It is very easy for Grannyring to spend a fraction of the Signature update and put in the same parts and achieve the same. I did this with the Io. In in fact, for the same cost, it is very easy to DIY to take the non-sig product beyond the Signature.

Having to "hear" an authentic Signature model to get the true Aesthetix magic is ridiculous.

I understand Kana813's point in this sense, technically Grannyring's modified Romulus isn't "identical" to the official Signature edition. Having acknowledged this point it's surely possible that Grannyring's version could be the better sounding unit. A majority of listeners might prefer the Jupiter copper foil caps to the Signature's Dynamicap option.A very good preamp may out perform the VC sound card option.
Charles,

And the biggest point is I like it:-)

The standard and Signature have the very same power supply which is sooo important and greatly adds to the magic of this player. Outstanding power supply. Same case work and shielding. Now my analog board is the same or actually better IMHO because of the new Jupiter caps.

I don't have DSD and the Sig does. But my CD collection, and I only listen to CD's now, is mostly redbook. On those redbook disc's I certainly have heard the Signature.

I do not have a full Signature and never said I did. All I ever said is I like it and I did some mods approaching the Sig for little money and it was fun. When and if I want DSD I will ask for that board. Aesthetix may or may not let me put it in, but I will at least ask.

I have owned their preamps in the past as well as the Altas hybrid amp. I liked all of these pieces and think the designs are very, very good.

I imagine Aesthetix knows many owners of their gear prefer using one of their actives to the sound card in the Romulus. They do make several very expensive and well regarded actives as we know.