Rega Research Apollo CD player
I've been looking at this all wrong.
My recent informal survey of ca $10,000 CD players has been based on two assumptions: that the people reading those reviews would be looking for their last-ever CD player, and that such a purchase would require Serious Money.
In addition to such things as the best available design and parts, the most luxurious enclosure, and the utmost in reliability, Serious Money is presumed to buy durability of value: Any appliance that costs $10,000 today had damn well better be worth more than nothing in five or ten years.
Resolution Audio Cantata Music Center
The dual subwoofers were bumping and our pant legs were flapping. Only moments before, we'd been treated to a polite viola da gamba. Not now. Resolution Audio's designer, Jeff Kalt, had brought only two discs with him to ensure that his company's Cantata Music Center was functioning properly in my system: Jordi Savall and Hespérion XXI's Altre Follie, 15001750 (CD, Alia Vox 9844), and Tool's 10,000 Days (CD, Tool Dissectional/Volcano 81991). After changing a few things around with the chamber music, we'd advanced to the hard rock of Tool.
Rotel RCD-955AX and RCD-965BX CD players
On the mantel sat a stuffed Culo snake from Nuevo Laredo, with a red rubber tongue in freeze-frame flick. Above the bookcase hung the mounted head of a wild poi dog, killed in self-defense in Sri Lanka with only a Phillips-head screwdriver. A table-lamp made from a shellac'd, puffed-up frog wearing a sombrero and playing the contrabassoon bathed the room in a soft cream glow.
Shanling MC-30 Music Center CD receiver
My first one-piece stereo—I think I paid $60 for it, including a pair of speakers with pegboard backs—gave me a lot of pleasure when I was young, and I loved it. Everything that came after has been better in every way but one: None has inspired that kind of love. And most have left me wondering if there might be something just a little bit better.
Simaudio Moon Eclipse CD player
"Isn't it nice to have some bastions of stability in an ever-changing world?"
Simaudio Moon Equinox CD player
Simaudio has been doing well in the middle of the high-end market, providing products such as their Moon i-5 integrated amplifier (reviewed">http://www.stereophile.com/amplificationreviews/620">reviewed by Chip Stern in July 2002), which offers a glimpse of high-quality sound at an affordable price. That's not to say that the Canadian manufacturer neglects the cost-no-object market: the two-box, $5700, Simaudio Moon Eclipse CD player impressed the heck out of Brian Damkroger when he">http://www.stereophile.com/digitalsourcereviews/343">he reviewed it for Stereophile in April 2001 (with a Follow-Up in April 2003). So when Simaudio's Lionel Goodfield offered me their Moon Equinox player ($2000) for inclusion in my irregular series of CD-player reviews (footnote 1), I didn't need to be asked twice.
Simaudio Moon Evolution 650D CD player
In the early 1980s, when CDs began trickling out of the few existing pressing plants, they were such rare and exotic objects that Aaron's Records, on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, kept them secured under lock and key in a tall glass cabinet. A customer forsaking vinyl would enter the store and, with great fanfare, announce the decision by dropping a load of LPs on the front counter with a disgusted thud. Then, in a ceremony resembling a rabbi removing the sacred scrolls of the Torah from the ark, the customer would approach the glass cabinet. An employee would unlock and swing open the doors, and, under that watchful gaze, the customer would choose from among a scattering of titles, carefully avoiding any disc that did not include the Strictly Kosher mark of "DDD."
Simaudio Moon Evolution 820S power supply
Can a power-supply upgrade produce audible sonic benefits? If you've upgraded the power supply of a phono preamplifier, you probably don't need to be convinced that it does, and those usually cost only a small percentage of the price of the model they power. But to add Simaudio's Moon Evolution 820S power supply ($8000) to the Moon Evolution 650D DACCD transport ($9000), which I reviewed in the November 2011 issue, almost doubles the latter's costthough the 820S can be used to simultaneously power two Moon Evolution components, like the 750D DAC ($14,000), 740P preamplifier ($9500), and 610LP ($7500) and 810LP phono preamplifier ($13,000).
Simaudio Moon Evolution Andromeda Reference CD player
It's easy to be impressed by Simaudio's Moon Evolution Andromeda Reference CD player. Everything about it oozes quality and luxury, from its imposing two-chassis configuration to the multi-component disc clamp of machined aluminum. Even surrounded by my double-decker VTL amps, VPI">http://www.stereophile.com/turntables/506vpi">VPI HR-X turntable, and Ferrari Fly-yellow Wilson">http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/619/index8.html">Wilson Audio Sophia 2 speakers, the Andromeda was usually the first thing guests asked about: "How much does that cost?" The answer is $12,500. The Andromeda should look impressive.
Simaudio Moon Evolution SuperNova CD player
Tony, a mechanic friend of mine, once ran down for me his "national characteristics" theory of automobile engineering. Germans, he said, love precision engineering but don't take repair into account, so their engines are always placed in wells so perfectly proportioned that skinned knuckles are inevitable. British cars, he said, are marketed to a nation of tinkerers, hence the existence of dual carburetors. And Italian cars? "Well, let's just say they all resemble espresso makers." He said it—and he was the proverbial Fiat mechanic named Tony.