Here are some pics of the player…

Sorry for the blurry text (Oh. Wait. With my glasses on it is actually more or less readable). The player has both analog out (RCA and XLR) and digital out (Toslink and Coax at 16 bit/44.1 Khz).

On the newer player, one can chose to lift ground or not. Haven’t had any need to use this feature yet… but hey, you never know…

The controls on the left side…

… and the right.

We only heard it a little while – and it needed to be warmed up and to be played awhile and broke-in in. Given all this, it sounded pretty darn good.

Wish we had got to keep it here a little longer – but it weren’t our player for very long (Thanks, T.A. !).

The tubes on the Audio Aero Prestige monoblock amplifers give off a rather uncommon white light. So we just had to take some pictures…

The amps were moved downstairs and put on the Marten Coltrane / EDGE/ Lamm / Audio Note system. They do quite well with these speakers – despite the low impedance in the speaker bass frequencies and the minimal 40 watts per channel from the amps.

The amps are actually swapper here in these pictures – usually, putting the left amp on the left would have the tubes be on the ‘outside’ of the amps from the perspective of the listening position – whereas here they are on the inside.

The Prestige is better sounding than the Capitole.

What a relief.

You know, we really like the Capitole (especially me). So much of the competition that is supposed to be ‘better’ sound like a lot of digititus to me: heavy on the detail, light on the music.

But the Prestige had sounded pretty darn good at CES… but that was over a year and a half ago. And there had been rumours that they had made some changes since then…

But, no, all is OK. This thing really sounds pretty good.

In comparison with the Capitole:

A tighter denser soundfield. More solidity. More coherence. More transparency. More real.

More detail but NOT at the expense of the music.

More midi and micro-dynamics. About the same macro-dynamics – which has always been one of the premiere features of the Capitole.

Warmth is about the same, … well, maybe a little less. Still has that analog-like romantic tinge to it.

Tighter in the bass. Much. Much more detail. Which is a good thing… and it was one of the few weaknesses of the Capitole that its bass did not have enough detail for some people, but….Actually I am hoping and anticipating that the bass loosens up a little more over time (the Capitole took awhile too, about 6 weeks or so). Just a little. There is this balance – between detail and control in the bass yet a natural looseness that makes it all sound real – can’t describe it, but you know it when you hear it (the Audio Note U.K. Kegons amplifiers got it in spades).

Just one compaint.

Why do all these SACD players have to be so SLOW? Yes, they have to scan the disc dozens of times to determine which kind of redbook format the CD is recorded in, and then to determine if it is also an SACD. But, geez.

No, it is only marginally slower than the Meitner. And not as bad as the Sony SCD-1 as I remember it. So it is not unusually slow. What IS unusual is for the person putting in the CD (for exmaple, me!) to be of the patient, I’ve got 5 to 10 seconds to spare, variety of audiophile.

So, ***drum roll please*** …

Presenting the New World Champion of the Single Box Players (and it even plays SACD)….. The Audio Aero Prestige.

I like it.