Recommend CD Player with Volume Control

Sorry guys I'll try to work on my specificity. In my defense knowone else said what they liked about it. I listend to and lived with the CD50 on 3 systems and came to roughly the same conclusion on each. Interestingly I found the CD50 scored the best on my he man rig. Tonally from the highs to the upper mids I really liked the CD50, it had extended treble without sounding bright or edgy, it may even beat out the Wadia in this regard. The lower mids seemed to have a slightly hard sound, not that bad though. The bass was generous and full though I felt that there was to much mid bass punch, which can add to effect of some music. It was in the area of spatial presentation where I feel that it fell short. The soundstage was narrow, with a confused sense of placement to each sound, it mushed or smushed the sound together. Compared to a Rotel 855, I thought that the Rotel bettered it in this area.Tonaly the CD50 is good, but the way it presents the sounds in space, simply sounds wrong to me. Instead of it sounding wide and deep, it seemed as if the sound was formed in a half circle coming at me. There is no doubt about it that the CD50 has a BIG detailed sound, "I just don't like it because of the way it deals with space." Maybe that area doesn't matter as much to some, but I don't think that the experience works if that doesn't. Oh yeah Carl I did listen to more than CDRs on it. My vote for a CD player with Volume control in the 2000.00 range would go to the Wadia 830 -Ryan

What preamp did you use with the Rotel, and did you use one with the CD50? I use no preamp with mine, and have found none of the aspects you name. How long was this CD50 left on in each instance, by the way? It needs a few days of being on, before it really performs its best. WHAT RECORDINGS DID YOU USE FOR COMPARISON? With mine, I hear a different soundstage size, width, depth, and tonal presentation, with each recording. I feel like I'm hearing the character of each space on each recording. And I definitely hear the rear corners of the recorded space, and hear no tonal emphasis of any kind, in any of the frequency range. If you like your Wadia better, that's fine. To each, his own. I suspect if the CD50, or CD55, costed $15,000, more people would buy one.

Look at the Metronome dude!!!

Carl- originally I left the player on for a week before any decisions were made. To many recordings to list them all-Yuseff Lateef,Speedy J,Steve Roach,Morton Feldman,Gyorgi Ligeti,Arovane,Deftones are a few. No preamp against the Wadia, just Pass Aleph 2s. Against the Rotel it was a Jolida 40 watt integrated to a pair of B&W CDM7s, I followed Resolutions advice in the manual for pairing it with an integrated amp. Have you ever directly compared the CD50 to a Wadia player in your home? I think if they were going to sell for 15k they would need a lot better looking box and a lot less cheap remote. You've got to admit that remote sucks for a 3k player. And your probably right they would sell a lot more. If I had 15k to spend I would go for the new meridian player though.

From smeone who has owned Wadia I would tell you hands down get yourself a CD50 (I imagine the CD55 is also an excellent performer but cannot comment). I have owned one for two months and have probably spent 2K on new and used CD's in that time. It presents the most nonfatiguing detail I have come across. Everything is there including proper slam but you can let it play for a week straight and never have the urge to shut it down. Mine has been working overtime. One of the key questions is what your amp would rather be driven with (opamps vs. true bipolar transitors biased in class a) Made Wadia seem archaic in my system. hope this helps. Paul