General Information
The Captiole Reference is a CD player that has a built-in, very high-quality, linestage and a volume control. This player is a classic that sounds so much better than the competition at its price point, even ignoring the fact that it also has a built-in linestage, and really excels at being able to bring the rest of a system up to point where it becomes much more enjoyable to listen to.
And then there is the linestage, kind of thrown in for free. It is hard to over-exaggerate the quality of the linestage - we routinely run our $40K Walker turntable with Lamm LP2 phonostage through it, and it sounds quite excellent. By saving its purchaser the cost of a preamplifier, the cost of an interconnect between the CD player and preamplifier, and the cost of a powercord and any vibration control for the preamplifier, this player has an amazingly good price performance ratio.
And then there is the linestage, kind of thrown in for free. It is hard to over-exaggerate the quality of the linestage - we routinely run our $40K Walker turntable with Lamm LP2 phonostage through it, and it sounds quite excellent. By saving its purchaser the cost of a preamplifier, the cost of an interconnect between the CD player and preamplifier, and the cost of a powercord and any vibration control for the preamplifier, this player has an amazingly good price performance ratio.
