Wadia 581SE, DCS Puccini or something else???

Why do you say forum feedback favors the 581SE over the CDSAse? I see no evidence of that. Preference seems to be pretty equal, maybe even more towards the CDSAse.

I was looking to replace an Esoteric source and tried the new dCS Puccini with Boulder amplification. The Puccini is new, hideously expensive, British and not particularly accessible for auditions - so i'm not surprised that not a lot has been written about it in this predominantly US forum.

I found the Puccini sound to be clean, fast, neutral and uncompromising in resolution. The Puccini is also the only player i've ever heard thats volume control [for direct connection to a power amplifier] was not, at least to me, audibly inferior to the fixed line out. I was however incensed with the cheap plastic remote and the absence of this players ability to DSD upsample from external sources.

I don't think the Wadia 9 series has been discussed often on Audiogon. Has anyone ever had the opportunity to compare the 9 series to the Wadia 581SE?

Thanks

I did not like the sound of the 581SE. Wadia I thought would be a great player before I heard it at a dealer. Audio Research CD7 sounded much better. Wadia reminds me of Rotel.

Have not compared Wadia 581SE do dCS but can say what Wadia’s sound signature is in comparison to Audio Aero Capitole SE and ML 390S.
Wadia and ML are closer to each other and starkly different players from AA.
To my surprise Wadia and ML sounded much smoother in HF than AA, quite the opposite of the preconceptions I had, and were significantly more extended on both ends.
The differences between Wadia and ML are not enormous, Wadia betters ML in terms of soundstage and imaging (ML is two dimensional in comparison to Wadia), and has more extension and control on bottom end, tonally they are close and the differences would be more along the lines of a preference and system synergy.
I personally would not go for AA, not even at significantly lower price tag.