resolution audio

I think someone said that Parts Connection div. of Sonic Frontiers has them available? Confirmation anyone?

Redkiwi have you tried Aurios MIBs under CDP?
If you do not have stiff/heavy AC cord or ICs, I find them much preferable to any cones I have tried.

No I haven't Megasam. It is not easy to try stuff like that in NZ without buying it from the US first. With enough recommendations for the Aurios MIBs, then that may have to be what I do. I find cones to be a bit of a band-aid and prefer to concentrate on rack and shelf. Cones give more detail and immediacy but at the price of imposing their own sound on everything. But if one's rack/shelf is not so good then on balance they can be a good thing. Streetdaddy, I have received your email but will respond publicly here if that is OK. You can find the E-A-R feet by going to www.sonicfrontiers.com and then selecting the link to The Parts Connection. You will find the E-A-R feet in the catalogue and the small ones sound better on the CD50. In general I find they are sweeter, smoother and more resolving through the mids and treble than standard rubber feet, and the bass is more articulate, extended and open than standard rubber feet. As rubber feet go, the standard ones on the CD50 are fairly bad - way too big for the weight of the component. If they had put something on that was a more appropriate size, no doubt people would have complained about the cheapness of the feet. One last comment. I have yet to find a system or setup that shows up any nasty sounds from the CD50. That makes it unusual in the world of CD players by my reckoning. Some may find others more engaging or exciting, but the sheer naturalness of the CD50 lets the music do the talking and never draws attention to itself. I know that sounds like a plug, but it is the best way I can describe why I like it.

thanks for the input on the 2 cd players. I'm still waiting for the new format to emerge, mainly because I don't want to buy 2 different types of software. I'm interested in upsamplers at this time because I can still play my regular cd's on them, but I do hear some controversy on this too, so will probably settle on a good cd player, then maybe use the digital outs for a dac in the future with the player as a transport.

Megasam - someone somewhere here suggested using heads of spoons (removed from their stems) sitting in Vibrapods, and then glass marbles sitting in them. Simple enough so I tried it. Believe it or not they sounded better if I sat the spoon head in up-turned E-A-R feet, but I got a sense of the effect of roller-bearings (no one brings them into NZ). Very good natural dynamics, some coloration, but primarily of the support (ie the Vibrapods or E-A-R feet), but also a mild ringing (perhaps the glass marbles, I will try ball-bearings soon). Definitely better than cones. Better with thin spoon heads like cheap metal measuring spoons than with your best silver (fortunately). I will do it a bit more properly next time and use precision surfaces (still much cheaper than bringing something in). If all that works I will start looking into getting something like the MIBs. As you say, the big difference was with the CD player. I am not so sure yet about the effect on my valve monos, with the el-cheapo test there was an unwanted coloration with the monos. Interestingly the effect is good between my Neuance shelves and my components, when I had thought the Neuance shelves had made fancy footers redundant - in fact all the cones I have fail to improve on using just the Neuance shelf - they do not improve isolation and add coloration. But the roller-bearing idea seems like it improves isolation further - very impressive.