Russian Tube Preamp, No Return, Here I go again

Commie rig.

Gosh, cmariner1.
How interesting and insightful!
And on only your second post. One can but hope all your future remarks will be as profound...

Well? Well?
Any new news yet?

Nada, Nyet, Nope. It will be a nice surprise.

Meanwhile, I decided to try and find a reasonably priced CD player that is audibly superior to my existing Sony.

Found and bought an Oppo BDP-83SE (special audio edition). Sadly, the laser mechanism was shot, 'unknown disc' .. Evidently a common problem. I just dropped it off yesterday pre-paid return shipping for full refund when received.

Been looking at:

Oppo UDP-205 (dual processors)

Onkyo C-7000R (dual processors)

*my first player was Onkyo DX-7500, dual matched burr brown processors, wonderful but got so drawer wouldn't open. I now realize I should have had it fixed, but it annoyed me (I couldn't fix it myself) and was very large. 

Pioneer UDP-LX500, interesting audio options.

Denon DCD-800NE

Sony UBP-X1100ES
.......................................

CD/SACD, 2 channel only: suggestions: good/avoid????????????????

Not sure what your budget is, but I'm sure you can do better than an Oppo. They're not very good sounding.