dcs puccini, chord red ref, meitner cdsa or nagra

That's very Meitner of you ;) My philosophy has always been reliability first because no matter how good a unit sounds, if it's not working you're getting zero performance (i.e., less performance than any working CDP). Of course, if the sonics aren't there, then all the reliability in the world isn't going to help you :)

i do not disagree Bar81 that's what I said first about well known manufacturer with reliability for example Accuphase, dCS, Esoteric......but sonics as well!

Chadeffect, Nagra and Chord don't play SACD, and Meitner is lousy with red book. And how many DSD SACD-s are out there with decent sound?

when i started this thread, i was looking for opinions of these players' ability to play redbook - not sacd.

The Playback Designs player looks like one of the vintage VCR players from the early 80's. Maybe it is different in person, but it does look cheap. I can't believe they would make something that expensive that ugly.