As a follow up to my earlier post, I have been in contact with Vincent Brient at Total Dac concerning the new transport (the d1 cd, I believe it is called) and he quoted me a price shipped (free) of 7150 USD. This comes in under the Aqua unit and about 1/3 the price of the Accustic Arts new reference transport that I very much fancy but cannot justify financially. It comes with a 20 day free trial period, BTW. I am currently cogitating as to whether to pull the trigger (or not). And while I'm at it, I have a question for those in the digital know.
Does the laser assembly in a transport gradually taper off in performance as it ages, thusly causing the quality of music reproduction to decline along the way in step with the laser's decline or is it a brickwall kind of thing where nothing changes sonically until the day the laser dies?