DUP, nobody from the lofty climes of high-end will review this until the guts of it are removed and placed into a brushed aluminium and curly Rock Maple case with a single switch on the front. It will have to be called "The Manson Precision Disk Interface" or something like that. The new case will also contain a fifteen kilogram lead brick for extra perceived value and "damping" Also the RCA connectors will have to be replaced with TNC's or some other exotic RF unit which will then have to have special interconnecting cables made for it that cost more than the player itself. More than the thoroughly ridiculous mark-up even.

I reckon, thus treated, you could ask $30,000 for it. $32,000 for the interconnects. Any less and it'll apear inferior.

I do not have experience with this unit, but HHB's stand alone burner's (like DUP's) are good solid workhorses.

Wow, very nice. I didn't see what it costs, but it looks like a really high potential universal.

What's the street price?

Dave

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What's the street price?

I haven't seen it stateside yet. It is available in the UK and, magically applying my in-head currency converter, should be roughly $1k when it is available here.

Amusingly HHB often touts its equipment as "audiophile quality" while selling to the studio community.

I used an HHB cd recorder (I think the "Burn-It") at a radio station and it's nice. Nice purplish faceplate too. I think a good candidate for audiophile type review.

Try reading the magazine some time instead of just disparaging it. There is a very generous assortment of affordable equipment reviewed. For Pete's sake, John Atkinson has made the Benchmark DAC-1, which minus USB costs less than this HHB, his de-facto budget reference for digital gear. He has run it against players so expensive that you could buy the Benchmark with the sales tax you would pay on the more expensive unit, and he has to my memory never said that anything made the Benchmark sound totally inferior; on the contrary, the usual response was that he had to focus to hear differences. Given these kind of facts, I think your post is rather insulting.

I have used HHB CDR burners, a lot. They are OK. I wrote up the Marantz Pro CDR burner some years back, because it had a surprisingly good playback section at a very decent price. So it is not as though Stereophile has never covered pro gear--the Benchmark is sold by a pro company.

I doubt I will have time to check out the HHB mentioned here, but only because I am doing a series on CD Receivers under $2500 and speakers under $1800. So much for the myth about only respecting ultra-high-priced gear.

John Marks

Ay, carumba!

CD receivers?

I can't think of any, let alone a series!

I gotta get with it.

Hey, for the speaker category, how about I insultingly insist you review the Mackie HR824mk2 speakers? About 1300 per pair, and they are active!

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Ay, carumba!

CD receivers?

I can't think of any, let alone a series!

Ah Buddha, you remember...The Arcam Solo, and that other one, um, ah whatever it's name was...

RG