Okay......best single box reference CD player

Recently had a chance to audition the new Boulder 1021 CD player at a local dealer. My comments will be prefaced by the dislaimer that listening to anything outside of your home system makes analysis challenging. The Boulder CD player is ultra-expensive (24K). However, it is a beautiful piece, and has some uniques attributes in how it reads CD's. Anyway, it was paired with Wilson Maxx 2 speakers, and the lower Boulder series (800) preamp and powers amps. We A/B'ed with the Esoteric X-01 player. The Boulder was clearly superior and offered improved detail with a lack of grain and hash that one would not have noticed if the Boulder didn't remove it. Whether it bests any of the others previously mentioned I cannot say. It is likely worthy of mention in the uber-CD player category.

What's unique about how the Boulder reads CDs and is it measurable somehow outside of subjective listening?

I heard the Boulder at the distributor house, great piece of equioment, but i will pay 24k? surely not, mostly due that the futur is in other way, PC based digital fronts, memory players, but less expensives....

My explanation will likely fall short of complete accuracy, but here is my best shot. The drive is only used for data retrieval. The signal is then processed, error corrected, reclocked, and then sent to the DAC. I presume it is supposed to resemble how a computer would present music for playback. A full description, I believe, can be found on their website.

In answer to your original question-The Playback Designs MPS 5 is the best single box reference CD player I've heard, by a HUGE margin. I've owned every iteration of the EMM Labs units- starting with the Modded Philips drive & DAC 6 up through the CDSA SE. I've owned the Playback Designs for several weeks now and it is literally transcendental. I don't mean to gush, but this digital is that good. I'm starting to question the superiority of vinyl playback. Is it possible that dragging a needle through a groove is, in fact, primitive after all?

Andreas did great work at EMM Labs, but he has truly come into his own with this player.