Sony and Phillips were co-founders of CD. Two companies who had the muscle and the street "cred" to push vinyl off a cliff. The initial players were "boat anchors."I remember my first CD player was a $300.00 Phillips. I bought it because I wanted to play a CD I had fell in love with. I would still have it now if it had not died. I bought the $500.00 Marantz player that Sam Tellig raved about in Sterophile. I sold it because a friend of mine let me listen to his Accuphase.
I was glad that those sub kilo-buck players were gone. My street cred as an irrational audiophile was in deep jeopardy. I was glad when friends could say," what a $6k CD player?" "It only plays one CD at a time?" Yet they were fine players with great sound. Yes the Accuphase was much better. I never had the great remote that was milled out of a block of aluminum. Drat!
What's my point? Most Audiophile companies just don't have the finances to build their own parts form for a CD player. There almost exclusively buying small quantities of off the shelf parts from the big boys. Not only do they pay top dollar they have a limited market. How many players can Playback Designs(PD) sell per year? 100? Moreover The market moves so fast by the time they put the product out the suppliers has discontinued the part and moved on to something else. If you are going to service your product you have to keep the parts in stock. This means you have to buy a huge stockpile. Heaven forbid you get caught substituting parts.
Let's just imagine that the President of Sony and Phillps get bored and decide to give the PD 915k)a listen. They are wowed and decide to buy a license for the design. They believe they could push a 100,000 units at $2k/unit. They have a wide distribution chain that can stock more units than they can sell. They can offer a 30 day money back trial. You can literally go to your local mall on Saturday, put it on a credit card and play it at your party on Saturday night. PD feels lucky if they can get five dealers and be able to buy a demo. Don't even think about keeping one in stock.
What would do the Adiophile world? How many audiophiles would take the bait?
Whats the point? Sterophile has given this unit-an A+ rating. this unit can be ordered over the Internet for a kilobuck.
Too see how difficult it would be see the PFO review http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue47/sonyscdxa5400es.htm. They gave it a good review but not without up to a grand in audiophile mods.
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