Okay......best single box reference CD player

Another vote for the Playback Designs MPS-5. it is set up to work as a DAC for a music server so is quite future proof. it uses an Esoteric VRDS transport. it is also software upgradable.

here is a link to a review of the MPS-5.

[url]http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?rdgtl&1212275915[/url]

Bar,

i don't know the answer to your question. it is very quiet and always reads the disc quickly and the first time.

i much prefer it to the Philips drive that was in my EMM Labs CDSD.

correction to my post above regarding the Playback Designs;

i said;

"it uses an Esoteric VRDS transport"

i had thought that all the Esoteric digital transports were VRDS and that there were various levels of VRDS. a friend pointed out to me that this is wrong. other levels of Esoteric Transports are called different names. so to be clear; the Playback Designs has an Esoteric transport; but i don't know which one it is. it could be the VRDS-NEO, but i seriously doubt that due to it's cost.

i hope this is clear.

Bar,

this is a brand new product and a brand new company that only shipped their first product 2-3 weeks ago.

they have been focused on getting the product out and getting production processes nailed down.....and since most of the initial production run was already spoken for websites and brochures are secondary at this point. you have a right to your own opinion on this of course.

contact them directly with any questions.

having lived with the Playback Designs for 3 weeks now; it is remarkable that any brand new product could work and perform as perfectly as this has.

Bill,

i am an open book. if someone cares about such things they can read my posting history; i hide nothing.

i would remind you to disclose you are a commercial dealer in competition with the distributor you refer to. while i personally think your intentions are honorable from your point of view others should know about where you come from.

many/most prominent posters here have close relationships with dealers and manufacturers.....or even have become part of the hifi business themselves.....it's the nature of the culture of this hobby. if someone asks me about my relationship with any dealer i will and have told the story.

ultimately; each poster's credibility or lack there-of is earned with what they say over time.

i suppose it is hard to isolate performance to just the DAC; but i do think that my perception of the performance advances of the Playback Designs is likely due a great deal to it's unique DAC design.

the DAC in the Playback Designs MPS-5 has an open architecture; it can be 1 bit-5.6mhz or 32 bit-196mhz, 72 bit-496 mhz or anything they want it to be. thru the USB port the software can be updated to whatever they want. algorithms can be updated.

this approach; properly implimented.....would likely trump any older set of 'off-the-shelf' dac chips. and would also be likely to stay at the top level of performance longer since it can be upgraded thru software.

the challenge, of course, is 'properly implimented'.

Mike I agree with you about the other DACs but EMM LABS still has the best SOTA DAC which can also be updated through the USB port. As everyone knows, differences between great cd players are very subtle and it takes great experience with hi-end, musical organs, and music productions to determine what is more "correct". And I think the EMM LABS is the best out there.

hi Argyro; i owned EMM Labs for the last 6 years. first the original DAC6 with the modified Philips SACD-1000 transport.....then i got the original CDSD transport, and then later i got the SE combo CDSD and DAC6.

the only one of these units which is 'user' software upgradeable by USB port is the transport CDSD SE. none of the DAC's are upgradeable by a consumer and none have a USB port. i cannot say what can be done by sending the unit back to EMM Labs.....there may be some sort of DAC upgrade that way. of course; you could say that about any digital player. but rarely does anyone upgrade DAC chips because the whole player is designed around a particular DAC chip set.

the CDSA does have a USB port which potentially could upgrade the DAC. but why would their second tier unit have an upgradable DAC and the DAC6 SE and DCC2 SE not have that same capability? it's more likely the USB port on the CDSA is there for the same reason it's on the CDSD, to update the transport software.

regarding performance i agree that the EMM Labs is excellent. OTOH in my listening tests the Playback Designs was quite a bit better to my ears.

"Wow. How does the Playback Designs accomplish what apparently other players cannot? What is the difference or new innovation in a technical sense? The designer must be doing something special or unique?"

the Playback Designs MPS-5 does all the obvious things right; a transformer instead of switching power supply, excellent analog output stage, a high quality Esoteric transport, and digital inputs for use as a server DAC. beyond that Andreas has somehow eliminated jitter both from the Esoteric transport and any digital input....and he has a totally custom designed, programable DAC.

it's the combination of all these elements which results in the performance. the hard part for the competition will be to compete with Andreas's digital design since it's proprietary; also meeting the price point with all the value.

Its weird that everybody who has an Evolution Acoustics speaker has a Darzteel amp.

the Evolution Acoustics use an integral digital amp to power the 15" woofers; which allow for a 93db, 6 ohm speaker which only needs a main amp to power above 100hz. one then has the opportunity to choose a mid or low powered amp with maximum refinement and naturalness. the dart then becomes the ideal solid state choice to use. when you hear these two products together it is easy to understand why they are combined.

what other mid-powered solid state amp would one choose that is better than the dart? some are likely a bit different; but better? there would probably be a few different tubed mid-powered choices which one could choose.

And everybody who has both has a Playback designs cd player.

obviously; the source for the above products manufacturers the Playback Designs....and therefore these customers are naturally among the first to be offered the Playback Designs.

i suppose synergy is above everything.

actually; there are a good percentage of early Playback Designs owners who own neither the Evolutions nor the darts. these other owners are experiencing the same performance leap that the Evolution-dart people are.

i think that amps and speakers must be synergistic to work.

the highest quality sources should synergize with any/every natural, high resolution system. sources should be neutral and should not require specific speakers or amps to work right.