[pekingduck]

So you think dCS is crazy....
 
 

 
Quote:

.......
 
The player is constructed in two sections of solid ¼" machined aluminum. The lower section contains full NBS power conditioning feeding a universal-input, power factor corrected power supply as well as a mains entrance connector and breaker/power switch. The upper section contains the disc drive, decoding and signal-processing circuits, DACs and output amplifiers. The local operating controls and track display are also in the upper unit.
 
The two units are separated physically to prevent any possibility of power supply interference to the operating section. However the units are not separable in the interest of avoiding unnecessary external interconnections. No fragile signals such as clocks or data are brought out of the box. Left and Right audio outputs are available balanced on gold-plated XL type connectors, or unbalanced on gold-plated RCA type connectors. The balanced and unbalanced outputs may be used simultaneously.
 
A major technical feature of the unit is a deep-buffer time-base corrector with an ultra low phase-noise clock. This is effectively like transferring the data to a hard drive, but without the wait. Think of it as an electronic hard drive. This combined with special dual-differential DAC architecture reduces jitter to vanishingly low levels. This is complemented by proprietary servo-controlled I/V converters, low pass filters and output amplifiers.
 
.....
 
Price: $50,0000.00 U.S.D.

 
....

 
http://www.nbscables.com/products/CD_player.html
 

 

[Balmoral]

What a bargain!  I'm gonna get one for myself and one for a friend.

 

[Uncle Erik]

Weird, I've paid a lot less for 1/4" aluminum plates.

 

[DJGeorgeT]

I believe that whoever created that page made a mistake, it is USD 50,000 MSRP, but can be bought for USD 40,000. Now it is affordable.

 

[Vandal]

Don't think a 5,00,000$ CD player exists. Not unless it's made of diamonds, and was owned by Idi Amin or something

 

[Dynobot]

Wood sounds better than metal....
 
But I guess if you want to build something that is going to end up with an elaborate price tag why not something cheap like Aluminum that gives the impression of something expensive.  You have to wonder, just how good can a $10 Red-Book Cd sound?  Can it make a simple Cd sound like a live concert?  I'd rather spend $50k per year on a few live events held at different places around the world for the next 10 years.
 
 
 

 

[vrln]

I love how there is zero information on what the aluminum box actually has inside. I bet it´s running a cheap Delta-Sigma chip...

 

[Uncle Erik]

I love how there is zero information on what the aluminum box actually has inside. I bet it´s running a cheap Delta-Sigma chip...

They don't have to. People in the market for this generally don't care - they just want to read glowing reviews and have a salesman reassure them.

Most audiophile stuff is not built for geeks and DIY'ers. It's built for people to fall in love with the looks and equate quality with the price tag.

Anyone who has ordered a bill of materials off Digikey and stuffed a few boards will be wondering where the extra $49,000, if not more, is going.

 

[vrln]

Oh well, at least they recommend not to run MP3´s on the player It says a lot that they have to mention it on the site... I´d be willing to bet a few dollars the power supply chassis is nowhere near the level Audio-gd likes to do them. My guess: single toroidal transformer or an RCore inside that huge power supply box.

 

[VictoriaGuy]

The fact that the pic is a very amateurish effort with a drawing program, rather than a picture of something real, leads me to the conclusion that it's all an elaborate spoof.
 
Not 'serious audiophile equipment' like $5k interconnects, magic rocks, and cable-elevating tripods!

John

 

[WonderSlug]

$50K for a CD player?
 
I'd love for someone to show/prove scientifically that it gives 1000x better audio quality than a $50 DVD player, or 100x better audio quality than a $500 CD player.
 
Otherwise, the price-performance ratio is severely lacking.
 
I'll stick with something like the Onkyo DV-SP504 Universal CD Player which is around $250 or the DV-SP506 for under $400.
 
 
 
 

 

[khaos974]

With only a few units (or maybe even a single one)  of this CD Player sold, they could afford a much better website and a professional photographer to take even more gorgeous pictures of their products.
 
Not to mention this:

GENIUS CABLE SYSTEM
 

PRODUCT	QTY.	LENGTH	RETAIL
RCA OR BAL INT.	2	4-12 FT.
A/C POWER CABLES	3	6-9 FT.
SPEAKER CABLE	1	8-12 FT.
ACOUSTIC MONOLITH	1 UNIT
SYSTEM COST:			$75,000.00

 
Of course we can guess they reinvest everything into R&D, having no time for superficial appearances.