Stunning beauty in the midrange, natural highs and bass with texture. Not the quickest, not the most detailed, not the tightest bass, but a beautiful sound. Needs to be left plugged in - the solid state part is always on - and the tube section needs 15 minutes of warm up, perhaps a bit more. It does not have HDCD or 24 bit chip, but it makes cds sound lovely. Less expensive solid state players sound rather mechanical by comparison. A great competitor is the Sonic Frontiers SFCD (available now only used). It is a tube unit as well. In the character of SF, it has more extended highs and deeper bass and is a bit faster and more detailed than the CJ, but it is far less musical, especially in the midrange. The SFCD is an excellent player though, not mechanical sounding, just a slightly different representation of reality vs the CJ.
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