Okay......best single box reference CD player

Recently had a chance to audition the new Boulder 1021 CD player at a local dealer. My comments will be prefaced by the dislaimer that listening to anything outside of your home system makes analysis challenging. The Boulder CD player is ultra-expensive (24K). However, it is a beautiful piece, and has some uniques attributes in how it reads CD's. Anyway, it was paired with Wilson Maxx 2 speakers, and the lower Boulder series (800) preamp and powers amps. We A/B'ed with the Esoteric X-01 player. The Boulder was clearly superior and offered improved detail with a lack of grain and hash that one would not have noticed if the Boulder didn't remove it. Whether it bests any of the others previously mentioned I cannot say. It is likely worthy of mention in the uber-CD player category.

My explanation will likely fall short of complete accuracy, but here is my best shot. The drive is only used for data retrieval. The signal is then processed, error corrected, reclocked, and then sent to the DAC. I presume it is supposed to resemble how a computer would present music for playback. A full description, I believe, can be found on their website.