Product comparison

Seadogs1, I had the Shanling T200 modded as you describe. In fact, I may have had one of the first. It is very dynamic with extended, airy highs and tight focused bass. Soundstaging is outstanding. The choice of listening to a tubed stage or SS digital stage is unique, and One I found to be fun to experiment with. However, I found the tube stage to lack the smoothness I expected with the tubes. My expectations might have been out of whack, I don't know. I am a tube newbie. Ultimately, I had quality control issues arise with the units I owned (3 total). To his credit, Underwoodwally - Walter Liederman - was extremely helpful and took very good care of me in trying to deliver a machine that was problem free. Two of the issues were totally Shanling's responsibility and completely unrelated to the Parts Connexion mods. The third issue was one of the Superclock II's compatibility with the T200, and it's an issue that Walter has told me has been resolved with the result being a Superclock II modded T200 that works perfectly. I have only the best things to say about Walter's service. My decision to give up the T200 was difficult, but in the end I decided three round trips was enough. I am taking delivery on an EMC1-UP soon, and I'll let you know the comparisons.

Thanks for your observations on the T-200. Is there any particular reason you went with the EMC1-UP?

Though not the new versions, I sold my EMC1mk2 and replaced it with the Mephito2 cd. The EMC1 had better bass at first but that was all that was better. The mephisto is much smoother with better PRAT and soudstaging. You can listen to it louder for longer as well.Totally seductive! I now think my bass is better than when I had the EMC1 but I have changed some things including a new amp, new power cable on the Mephito, and different settings on my ML sub-so I cant say for sure in the bass dept- it took some tuning and system matching to get it there...

What is your price range? Audio Note make excellent musical products. Their separates are natural sounding tho pricey. Highly recommended. Enjoy listening.

Seadogs1, I went with the EMC-1UP simply through reading many positive posts on this board combined with finding a used player here on Audiogon. Frankly, I took a "flyer". I knew I wasn't interested in any of the French machines, for several reasons, the most important one being reliability (I've read both positive and negatives regarding this matter). I'm glad I took the chance on the Electrocompaniet. It's proven to be better than what I had in my system before, and that's what counts!