Powerste- I have been very happy with my CL-10, which you should be able to buy used for much less than 1k. CAL is owned by Sensory Science and appears to be pretty stable. They are going big into HT and I think have pretty much ditched CD only for DVD/CD units, which may explain the discontiuance of the CL-10.
CD Changer advice
I'm looking into a CD chnager as a replacement to an 11-yr old Sony single player. I'd like to check out HDCD and I can spend about $1K. This presents a few options: First, buy one of the two 'audiophile' integrated units (CAL CL-10 or Anthem CD-1) out there, BOTH of which are now out of production, both of which can be found for around a grand here. Second, pick up a credible mid-fi rig (Denon does a decent HDCD 5CD carousel) and add an outboard DAC (Bel Canto, CAL Sigma 24/96) to it. Any thoughts on either path? Changer or DAC recommenations? Reservations about buying the out-of-production units? Lastly, if I went with separates, would it matter where the HDCD filter is - transport or DAC? I'm not sure if the filter is used during D/A conversion (requiring an HDCD DAC)or if it affects the digital signal picked up as the transport reads the CD (requiring an HDCD transport). Thanks!