New Wadia 381i vs Puccini

..thought i had to clarify "friendly": It is an absolutely clear window, with maybe the exception of piano initial attacks. no showoff with "nice" sounds, albeit they will be there if on record.

Egidus, have you compared the USB input to running off the transport? Is there much of a performance difference?

Hi Egidius,
I finally also decided on a GNSC model but "only" the 381i. I do not know how this one compares to the 781i in absolute terms (Genkides above) but this is my personal limit for CD playback. May be the 381 is a bit more friendly ;-) at least according to some reviews. Thanks a lot for your comment.

Hey Msw1, good choice. I havent heard the GNSC modded player but have the stock 381 spinning now in my system on home demo. Very detailed but less so than the Esoteric (and more than my Marantz SA11). Lots of air around the voices and instruments, places singers slighty back in the soundstage but very believable. Good rythym, lacks the slight bloom of the Marantz but the bass is tight and tuneful on all types of music (been listening to DSOTM, jazz, classical piano, cello, double bass and some blues so far). Only refused to play one disc (the Esoteric SA50 has been the only player I've demo'ed that has played every disc I've thrown at it). The black shape though does look like a Stanley Kubrick prop left over from 2001! Anyhow, an impressive player and is probably as good as I need for my current system (Simaudio i7 and Focal 1027be's). The MF AMS and the Wadia 781 were much better players across the board but expensive for my budget and would push me too far down the slippery upgrade slope!

..sorry for not getting back earlier, lack of leisure!

Kamil: I cannot judge yet usb vs. cd/sacd, this is mostly due to the fact that my usb material is my own music, so naturally i always consider it "better" than from disc, but objectively, I cannot vouch for it. To be honest, I am much slower with detecting differences that matter than other people.
Still, I consider the Wadia as outstanding (congrats MSW1), and I could imagine, that with the GNS mods you can reduce the difference of 7 to 5 to 381 considerably. For my sake i wish, not too much.