I just bought one of these 3 days ago and it works just fine. It was made in July of this year and maybe Nad has worked the bugs out of it. I have to agree with most people on the sturdiness of the machine. The tray seems to be made out of flimsy rubber but it sounds excellent. I have a cd that looks like its been at the beach at a frisbee tournament. I don't think any player could read a fraction of it. I have a 40lb sony x77es that is my current player. It snap, crackles and pops all the way through it. So what do I do with this cd but put it in the flimsy tray of the Nad and laugh as I push play. If my 40lb beast can't handle that then no player can! I'm not laughing anymore. The 540 played the cd as if I had just bought it yesterday. No noise, skip or nothing. I also had a pd65 that couldn't play that cd without skipping. I am not a big fan of Nad products, in fact this is the first component I've owned from them. I have Sim electronics and Morel speakers and like I said I just picked this thing up as a joke just to see how the new 24 bit converter would sound. I don't know how long you have owned the 540, but if you enjoy the sound of it, I'd have it checked out or try to have Nad replace it with a more current batch like mine where they have at least worked out some of the earlier quirks. Good luck
