Emmlabs CDSA

Calloway, does your CDSA have the upgraded transport? It seems to be pretty well built to me. Maybe not VRDS, but like you, I find it to be a wonderful player; I surprisingly prefer it to my previous Accustic Arts transport and DAC, I was not expecting to as I was simply interested in going with a high-quality, one-box solution for ergonomic reasons. RW, nothing makes it worth $25,000 but for the fact that they have a market for it for well healed audiophiles; you are unlikely to find a justification for it based on parts costs (even with the expense of using the Esoteric drive) and reasonable profit - but that is the nature of luxury items.

Budt, I came to the CDSA-SE after having owned NAIM, ARC CD3mkII and most recently the Accustic Arts Transport and DACIV. What the CDSA-SE does best is provide incrediblly good microdynamics that allows me to better hear the vocal or intrumental inflections of a performance, this makes the singers intent (lyrics and emotion) more intelligible and and instrumentalists performance clearer. These aren't really audiophile terms, but can best be expressed by saying the CDSA let's me understand what the musician is trying to say - which is a little different than focusing on timbral balance, soundstaging, speed, etc. I tend not to focus on that when I listen to equipment, but rather how close do I feel I am getting to the musical message - judged this way, it is the best digital performance I have heard -- this on Redbook CD, as I only own to SACDs (Analogue Productions Blue Train and Moanin). Unfortunately SACD is even better, but not likely that format will survive for long. I've not heard the Alpha DAC, and based on "reviews" it sounds like a unit well worth auditioning, but I just wasn't interested in two-box (PC/DAC or Transport/DAC) combo at this point.

I think that is a really good way of saying it, microdynamics and detail, yet "musical". That is a very important area of performance to me, it really makes the music more intelligible, you get more of a sense of not only what is singer is saying, but how they feel about it. Hard to describe what I mean, but when you hear it you'll get it. Let's just say that it has to be on any short-list of top ranked players and the rest is ergonomics, personal taste, and price. I'm going to wait a few years before going the computer audio route, I still think that playing field has not sorted itself out and with 2,000+ CDs, not that relevant at the moment.