Has anyone had the $ 5k upgrade to their cdsa-se ?

The x upgrade warms up the cdsa a lot and adds resolution and is worth every penny to mine.
But the xds1 removes even the last traces of digital chill and really improves performance on poorly mastered CDs and adds another level of analog-style relaxation. If you have the $$, the xds1 stops upgrade-itis permanently (for me it did).

Hi,

I've spoken to Emm's and they adviced that the X upgrade gives you about 70% sound quality of the XDS-1.

Expensive upgrades can be poor values at some future resale. spend 6K on the Resolution Audio CD player, sell your original and you will be far ahead in money and sound quality.

A stock EMM CDSA is a ways ahead of an Resolution Opus (if that's the model you're referring to) on redbook - and does the Opus even do SACD? Good SACDs on the EMM machine rival vinyl setups of similar value IMO.

$5K for an "upgrade" of a $10K player (now available for under $5K used) is quite a lot of money, however.