Levinson 39 or Wadia 830/850/860 ?

(1) stereophile has an extensive archive of reviews on their website; (2) wadia is, for now and maybe forever, kaput--caveat emptor; and,(3) it's all system-dependent, i.e., ya gotta listen for yourself, in your system. IMHO, the madrigal dacs smooth out the sound by rolling off the highs, thus creating their own version of distortion. what some hear as "brightness" with the wadia's is probably closer to neutrality than with levinson's (the name, not the man) of equal price range .

just read the stereophile article re: the reborn wadia. not sure what stock to place in it. i'd wanna hear more before investing.

Searched the Stereophile website archive. There is no review of the Wadia 850 (May 98) available. Is there any chance that someone may have the review posted in his own website ? Thanks.

The SONY SCD-1 easily surpasses all of these CD players (in my system) for Red Book CD playback and you get SACD capability to boot. The selection of the SCD-1 is a no-brainer IMHO.