cd players w/xlr out & no pre-amp needed

He's right about the Resolution Audio. It's probably the most musical cd playback system I've ever heard. I had one for abt 2 yrs, and combined my theater w/stereo and got rid of it. I replaced it with much more expensive Proceed/Levinson separates and find myself missing it on a regular basis.

Hey Hey, The Sony XA7ES (rca only), Resolution Audio, and Wadia line are all good sounding players. One good/bad thing about the wadia is that it is a DIGITAL volume control. See www.wadia.com for details. The bad side being a narrow range of volume attenuation. There are a couple other's I have heard of that are supposed to be good: the Cal audio 10 (?), theta miles, and the levinson 39.

I can't recommend the Resolution Audio CD50 highly enough! I'm using mine balanced, straight into a Krell amp, and the sound is certainly better in every way than anybody's digital front end I've ever heard. I use MIT 330 Shotgun Medium Proline interconnect, and you just would not believe how spectacular, musical, and analog it sounds. Just loovvveee it! Place a want to buy ad for one. I did that a year ago, and had mine a week later...I feel sorry for the guy that had to let it go, but he needed the money. I can't foresee re-selling this thing in the future.

There is a CD50 up for auction right now! From all the talk I've heard I would buy it if I had the money.