California Audio Labs – Icon Mk II CD Player - HDCD

I already own this unit and it has HDCD.  It sounds very very close to an Oppo BDP-103 in sound quality, despite its age.  

I heard that if it has the HDCD, then it has the Powerboss upgrade for sure.

Does anybody know if that's true?

Mine came direct from Cal Audio but it says HDCD on it and does not say "PowerBoss"

The Stereophile article says "The Power Boss upgrade for the California Audio Labs Icon Mk.II ... adds HDCD "  but it does not say that an HDCD player has PowerBoss.

I am curious because this elderly player seems to be as good as the OPPO one (the $500 Oppo, not the expensive one).

Thx for the info on ID'ing the unit.

BTW, I've used mine for many years with no problems ever.

I confirmed mine has the PowerBoss pcb -- it seems about as good as an Oppo 103 

I guess I like this player quite well since it is about as good as Oppo's 103 (tho it lacks features like SACD, DVDs, or ability to stream).  The display is very comprehensive tho hard to read.

I have never compared it to a current $2000 to $3,000 digital front end, but if we reached a plateau in redbook CD playback 20 years ago for the better players like this one, then that money should go into better speakers, room treatments etc.

I am likely to buy a universal player in the near future, mainly just to reduce clutter on the stereo cabinet, and the # of remotes involved.  I'll either move the Cal Audio downstairs in the bedroom or sell it.

BTW, it plays into the following system: Sonic frontiers Line One pre; Sunfire amp; Maggie 1.5QRs.  I sometimes patch in a DacMagic but usually use that to decode Apple Lossless files coming over Wifi via an Apple TV3