Raysonic 168

I believe the 168 has a volume control enabling you to run it directly into a
power amp without an intervening active preamp/linestage. This may not be a
good idea, sonically. Saturday I took my Raysonic 128 over to a friend's house
to play it through his passive linestage. Sounded totally unlike itself -- scrawny,
threadbare, glary -- and I quickly reinserted it into my CJ Premier 17LS2 when I
got home to see if it was damaged. Nope, sounded great. But it definitely
doesn't play well with passives, or at least this particular one that was custom-
built by my friend. His own CD player/DAC sounded just great through this
passive, BTW. Dave

I think the current MSRP for the 128 is $1850. I can't see the additional money for the 168, given what you say, but it would be nice to see some review comparisons.