Opinion on below 2 CD players ?

Jeremy, the Ensemble Dirondo is very detailed, very dynamic, with a great bottom end and terrific layering in a large soundstage, but has a "cool" overall sonic signature.

The AA Capitole MK 11 offers the above with somewhat less details and dynamics, but offers a "warm" overall sonic signature.

There both great sounding CDPs, offering different perspectives on the musical event they are playing, so it would come down to personnal taste and system synergy.

You might want to take a look at a thread I started entitled: Reference DACS: An overall perspective, that talks about two different "flavors" in DACS and CDPS. The Ensemble is a #1 and the Aero Capitole is a #2. Both of these categories are described in detail on this thread.

Would like to know how many versions does the Audio Aero Capitole CD player have ?

I saw quite a number of versions & was quite confuse, Mk1, Mk2, Mk2 SE & Reference ?

Are they SS or tube & what is the difference ?

Thanks.

Basicly there are 3 different versions of Capitole: the original Capitole (now known as mk I) ca. year 2000, the most popular mk II (2002 me thinks) and the latest Reference (for whatever reason instead of going for mk III sufix they named the new player Reference).

Mk II and Reference models can be had with the SE modification, which replaces the original Hovlands caps with vastly superior V-Caps. This mod was first offered by Globe Marketing - AA distributor in the US - but now a player can be ordered with this mod from the factory. To add to the confusion, this mod is called by AA "Signature" not SE, although it is exactly the same.

All the models have tubed output stages and superior Philips CD-Pro2 drive (not shure about the mk I though).

The model representing the best value (IMO) is Capitole mk II SE, which can be had for around 5000$ used. I was told that it is actually superior to the plain vanilla Capitole Reference (without the SE mod).

Hope it makes sense.

Thanks a lot.

All the while, I thought its output is SS. My friend also not aware of it.