Thank you for the kind words, Pardales.
This has become a pretty heated thread, and while I often enjoy those, this one doesn't need to be.
In the "put your money where your mouth is", I just returned from Best Buy with one of the $99 Samsung HD841 players which Sean described above as a closeout. I have been thinking about it for a few weeks now, since the thread was active regarding how the modded Toshiba 4960 ($700 for player and mods) equalled the $11K Linn Unidisk. I saw one last week in Tweeter, and was quite impressed with the look and build. While I have seen them on ebay in the $89 - $130 area, Sean's news put me over the top. The 30 day return policy appealed to me should the unit be defective.
I am going to give it a listen, break it in, and then compare it to my Granite 657 CD player. At some point, I will be shipping it out to a modder for the royal treatment. At that point, look for me to initiate a thread here on Audiogon on how the machine compares to what I consider a top drawer audiophile CD player.
Again, I like the flexibility of being able to run CD, DVD-A, SACD, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, MP3, ABC, 123, whatever in the machine. Hopefully, after this plays out, I can sit back and enjoy the music until if/when whatever the whiz bang thing downloaded, hard disk, BluRay, whoever takes serious root as something better.
