what are the Best Direct to amps Digital Players ?

The Romulus looks very interesting. Audiolabyrinths aspirations for a single box transport / DAC resonates with many audiophiles who are trying to keep the box count down!

@ Edorr, Hi, Sorry about the confusion,$20,000 to $50,000 is out of my price reach for digital!,the Boulder 1021 has been out for a long time, I did not know it had volume control?, Thankyou for patiently putting up with me, you are a gentleman indeed,The Ayon 2s is a cd player, it is not red book only player, it plays CDRs but not sacd, I am confused about the Romulus, Do you beleieve it plays more than red book only?, the specs say it plays red book only on the transport, I really do not know what their version of red book is, to me, thats standard cds, nothing else, I would like a player that plays most of todays modern medias, A cd player or a cd/sacd player, this Romulus is a great recommendation!, maybe I should give them a call next week to see if their player can play my cds, CDRs that are recorded really good!, and, of course I have standard cds, The CDrs are dvd a audio and 24/192 cdrs,, My price range can go up to retail 13,000.00, ,like most audiophiles, used is good to, try to save money is always nice, Edorr, My member friends believe your recommendation of the Romulus is more my tast the the Esoteric K-03 in sound, these are the two so far on top of my list amongst others, what do you think of this new esoteric K series sound?,, cheers.

I have owned two. EAR Acute and now Ancient Audio. Both are excellent tube based players, but the Ancient Audio actually includes a pre-amp circuit with additional inputs.

Audiolabyrinth, I think you need to rethink your approach. Your parameters (<13K, single box, volume control, plays CDR, DVD-A) narrow the field to a very limited number of players (potentially zero). The problem is once you identified that player (a) you probably have to buy at full price, and (b) you are missing out on better options. So here is my thinking. Assuming rackspace is not an issue, it appears a single box is needed to avoid having to buy a pair of very pricey analog cables. Fair, enough. Just get a digital transport that meets your needs. Highly acclaimed PS Audio Perfect Wave transports are showing up in droves (nothing wrong with the transport, just many people moving away from spinning discs). Pick one up for $1,500 (MSRP = $4,000), and your in business. (of course you need a half decent digital cable - $500 tops). Now you have a very wide field of D/A converters with volume control to choose from, in your price bracket (you have around $10K left), and endless reviews / opinions. Also, you can now keep your eyes open for a used DAC that makes it to your shortlist.

First think to ask now is are you OK with digital VC, do you want analog VC, and if so how important is it is tube based. If you want tube, Aesthetix Pandora is a good option, and I'm sure there are others. If you want analog, you can get entry level MSB. A highly respected DACs with digital VC is Berkeley Audio design, well within your budget.

The advantage of this approach is you have many, many more options, and have access to the used market, and in my opinion you will end up with better sound for the money, simply because DACs is where the action and hence innovation is these days in high end audio.

It's seems crazy that someone who's system is outfitted with Tara labs zero gold would be limited to 13k retail for their source component. I think the other suggestion that you consider a transport is the right one. There is hardly a choice available or very limited for what you want.