With the company no longer in business and the age of these players, do they have a good reliability history to be a viable purchase option? Would you buy one for $500 or its better to look for something new for that price? If so, what? I'm particularly concerned about the transport mechanism on these older CD players. |
A low mileage, well maintained unit should give you many additional years of listening pleasure. That being said, even newer peices sometimes require service at some point. Good to know that if ever in the future a hurdle is encountered, there appears to be a reliable service option for these tank-built classic players: http://www.approvedaudioservice.com/cal.html |
CAL's 5CD Changer had a bad reputation and was buggy. The later generatons of the new PowerBoss HDCD ICON mkII have always been solid. CAL got lots of practice initially modifying older ICONs and perfected the process that resulted in thier flagship ICON mkII HDCD PowerBoss; I was an authorized dealer of this line for some time and never had a return. The carousel changer was a different story. |
Even today this pimped-out version of the ICON is competitive and holds its own against newer one-piece players. I am only selling mine because I graduated to building a JRiver based music server with a $2,000 external DAC. I stored the ICON carefully as a collectors item, but its time for one of my Audiogon brothers to enjoy it now. |
