WAITING FOR THE LATEST PURCHASE TO ARRIVE- ELECTROCOMPANIET EMP-1/S SACD-CD PLAYER

@jafant I'm glad to hear that!  With modern soldering techniques and the surface mount devices used, it could happen with about any brand I suppose.  It makes me a bit uncomfortable given the price of hi-end gear.

UPDATE:  The player arrived several days ago.  I've had it hooked up ever since, burning in.  I have my Marantz SA 1 hooked up to a balanced input of my Rowland Research with 1m of Cardas Neutral Reference.  I have the Electrocompaniet EMP-1/S hooked up to a balanced input of my Rowland Research with 1m of Cardas Neutral Reference.  I have the same power cable (Viborg 1606 2m) hooked to each player, as I have found this power cord to work very well with digital components.  

Right off, with the EMP 1 cold (and the SA 1 has been hooked up and running for several weeks), I could hear some positives about the EMP 1.  It seemed to have tighter bass, but it fell short in virtually every other category.  I gave it time to warm up, and I put a disc on "repeat" and just let it go.

BUILD-PARTS QUALITY-  The EMP 1 and SA 1 could hardly be more different in this area.  The SA 1 weighs over 40 lbs and is stuffed with copper, buss bars, audiophile-grade caps and resistors, a cast and machined aluminum drawer, and even the cover is made from heavy-gauge aluminum.  It's a very impressive beast.  Due to the transformers and a heavy copper-plated steel sheet on the bottom, it's difficult to move it anywhere.  The Electrocompaniet EMP-1 is different.  It's made from heavy-gauge steel, and the faceplate is acrylic, about 1/2 inch thick.  The writing is gold.  It is a nice-looking player, but it doesn't have that over-the-top build exhibited by the Marantz.  It weighs about half of what the Marantz does.  Looking inside the Electrocompaniet, there simply isn't much in there.  The large power supply caps are made by Nippon Chemicon and Vishay.  Smaller capacitors are little Panasonic surface mount tiny aluminum cans.  The FK series mostly.  Where the Marantz uses Elna Silmic capacitors for audio output capacitors, the Electrocompaniet uses surface-mount Panasonic FK series caps. 

There is lots of space inside the EMP-1.  The EMP-1 has a single toroid transformer, and every board, sometimes in multiple locations, has regulated and filtered circuits.  The Marantz has a transport section that takes up about half of the unit.  The power supply board takes up about half.  The DA conversion/audio output board is above the power supply board and takes up the same amount of space as the power supply board.  The Marantz is so stuffed, I don't think you could fit a thimble inside of that thing!  The Electrocompaniet has a great deal of space.  Everything has dedicated power supplies.  The parts quality is good from a brand-name perspective, but as far as being "audiophile parts", they are not.  The output stage is discrete using surface-mount transistors.  Two very different approaches.  However, the newer gear by Levinson and Jeff Rowland (for example) uses surface mount devices everywhere, except where big filter caps are needed.  They claim there are many advantages to it.  Shorter signal paths, lower impedance ground plane, less board-induced capacitance and inductance, and lower noise.  I have worked on audio gear off and on for nearly 40 years as a hobby, but these surface mount devices take someone who's a different breed than me to do service!  I bought the correct equipment to do so, and it helped me only a little.  It's not like it used to be.  The Marantz SA 1, built nearly 25 years ago, is the same way.

WHERE IT'S AT NOW AFTER CLOSE TO ONE WEEK:  So I'm comparing hi-res downloads, SACD, and CD from the Marantz SA 1 along with SACD and CD from the Electrocompaniet EMP-1s.  I will tell you this: the EMP-1 has changed quite a bit.  It does have a "warmish" sound, not overly so; in fact, the SA 1 seems warmer.  The EMP 1 does a killer job with redbook.  Wow.  As good as the Marantz is with Redbook, the Electrocompaniet does better.  Deeper bass, wider and deeper stage, greater retrieval of information.  I am pleased with the redbook performance of both, but the EMP-1 gets the nod.  What about SACD?

Comparing them, the Marantz bass seems a little soft; the Electrocompaniet is tight, weighty, and punchy.  They both do well with bass timbre.  The EMP-1 was not cooperating in relation to becoming very 3D for a while, but one night, that changed.  It and the SA 1 are pretty even in that regard.  But, where it seems that some things become faint when far to the rear of the stage, a bit murky, the EMP 1 places them in the same location, but you can hear more.  Dynamics are great with both players.  Then there's the midrange and highs.  It's about cleanliness, correct timbre, balance, low noise, lack of strain, transparency, flow, and simply being natural.  They are both fantastic in both categories, but one is edging out the other here, and I didn't expect it to happen.  The Electrocompaniet EMP-1S comes out ahead.  The background is slightly more black.  Things seem a little cleaner.  The timbre is close enough that it's a tough one.  The EMP-1s can do sudden dynamic strains like turning on a dime, where I thought the SA 1 could, but the EMP 1 just does it better.  The EMP 1s have superior tonal balance; there is a touch of grain in the SA 1 highs.  The EMP 1s offers a greater sense of transparency.

The Electro EMP-1s simply sound more like Margo Timmins and the rest of the gang are in my room.  Have you ever heard anyone who just attended a live performance say, "Wow.  Did you hear those highs?" or "Did you hear how transparent they sounded?" or "That live guitar sounded so accurate, it was like listening to a live guitar!"  No, you haven't.  These are descriptions reserved for audio systems.  The Marantz can elicit such comments.  The Electro sounds so "there" that it may not!  It's like it just plays.  You know how some musical instruments, when recorded, almost always irritate the ear?  Yet, when heard live, it's OK.  With the Electro, it is so "there", these annoying instruments come through ok, they sound very real, so real that I almost don't even think about it.  Yet, it does the job while maintaining composure.  That's the way it is.

Because I don't design this stuff and lack the skill, training, AND ability to do it/learn it, I don't know why the Electrocompaniet EMP-1S manages to do what it does with a chassis that's nearly empty when compared to a Marantz SA 1.  The SA 1 is still an incredible player, with its engineers clearly covering base after base back when it was released 26 years ago.  My Electrocompaniet EMP-1s simply do some stuff about the same, other stuff a little better, and other stuff yet quite a bit better.  However, between my amplification, speakers, and cables, there's $16K worth of stuff there, and I really think that equipment that's lower on the food chain will not reveal all that I heard, just like I believe higher-end equipment than mine will reveal more.  I do believe that due to the sonic credentials and parts availability, the Electro SACD-CD Player will be the one for me.

Just trust your ears.  The particular dac chip is not as important as the intetegration. You need discrete electronis from the chip to the analog output stage ase well as clean power supplies for the best sound.