Vincent Products

Just be aware that Vincent is many times more expensive than ShengYa which you can find with a little work. Be aware also that Shengya does not offer the full line at 120 volts. I have heard Vincent not Shengya and was not particularly taken with any of the typical ways we describe sonics, but use your own judgement. If you can get them ShengYa prices, which are very low, I would say they are a very good buy but not my idea of great sound, but who cares what I think. It's your decision alone.

Mechans is partially correct regarding Shengya.

To elaborate from my previous posting, I bought the CD player Shengya S10CS from local Chinatown electronics dealer that's been around for at least a decade. This place is legitimate, there lots of customers and dedicated listening rooms and not some dark back alley where goods are purchased out of a van.

The price I paid was more than a 2x lower than the MSRP of the comparable model to the Vincent S6 that was praised by soundstage a few months ago.

Suspiciously, I actually asked to opened up & take a look "under the hood" before I purchased and found the Shengya's specs to be 90% of the Vincent model. Shengya has a different torodial transformer and 2 of tubes types used were different from Vincent. But I would say the differences are more like Acura TSX vs. Honda Euro Accord (basically same inards with different tweaks & upgrades for local market)

Most of all to my surprise CD player was 120V (not modded from dealer as this was also confirmed on the factory box it came in). Previous to that I thought as Mechans did...ie. Shengya is only 220V.

Though I have not heard the Vincent S6. If, I was asked to describe the sonic attributes of the Shengya, it would be exactly how Soundstage reviewed the Vincent S6.

Time will only tell if I bought a lemon or "grey market", but I tell you at multiples the msrp, it was a no brainer for me to roll the dice on the purchase.

Thank you all for the input. My plan would be to use the Vincent CD-S1.1 as a CD transport for my Benchmark DAC1 and listen to HDCDs via the Vincent's hybrid output on balanced outputs.

I gave up on finding a good used HDCD player with balanced outputs. Too many had tracking and reading problems. Some can't handle CD-Rs or CD-RWs. Others are really high end and quite expensive and, therefore, obviate the need for an external DAC.

I still have my eye open for a Rotel 990 or 991 though. I noticed one here on A'gon. Hmmmmmm

I was looking through the latest audio advisor mag and was interested in the vincent sp-331 power amp, has a tube input stage with a solid state output. The thing is that the tubes are 6N16, which are a small Chinese variety. In addition to this they are hardwired to the circuit board and if they need to be replaced I was told the unit would have to be sent to the service center in Michigan. I did a google on 6n16 tubes and found nothing except that they appear to be used only in vincent products. Not all vincent products use the 6n16, I believe their top of the line cdp uses a "standard" sized tube. The gear looks nice, I did not ask about warranty length.

I got a pair of monoblocks VINCENT SP-991Plus and the S3 (HDCD compatible) CD player. Both are great stuff, perfectly finished and sounding like the best electronics out there, but at a fraction of Mark Levinson or CLASSÉ prices. At the prices given, this brand is a steal!