problems with 24 bit cd players

So what is your aversion to a DAC?

You are misguided to be hung up on an output tube. The digital to analog portion has to be solid state. You can add a tube to the output for bufferring and/or to add some gain and/or to distort the signal in some way to make it more "tubey," but you certainly don't need a tube to have a fine sounding player or DAC.

And why are you hung up on 20 bits. By definition it can't be anything other than 16 bits and be NonOS. All NonOS players/DACS are 16 bit. Wavelength, Altmann, Scott Nixon, Paradesia, etc. are all 16 bit.

Why 20 bit and not 24? You can't get from the native 16 bit format of the CD to 20 or 24 bits without some type of data manipulation; some type of sampling/conversion.

I would agree with "hyper detailed" and if that is not to your liking I suggest a non over sampled player is your best bet. I'm not sure about one box players but why not a DAC? I'm not as familiar with the players but there are quite a few DACs. Check my system for one approach.

Greg, the digital to analog conversion is done with an intergrated circuit. Digital goes into the chip and an analog signal comes out. It is all done inside the chip.

digital signal in ------ chip -------- analog output

You can add tubes at that point but the conversion is done.

Mr. Tennis, why are you looking for a player that is as close as posssible to the Audio Note? If you revere this player and need another one just buy another Audio Note. If you are as thrilled as you seem to be and only hope to come close to it's performance why would you want to replace it? This looks like yet another Mr. Tennis troll.

i am looking for a non upsampling less than 24 bit cd player

Do my other posts not show up? Why do you keep saying that? That statement makes no sense. If it is non upsampling and non oversampling IT IS 16 BITS !!!!!! Period. end of story. If it has more than 16 bits it is doing some type of sampling to create the extra bits.

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH

OK, I feel better now.

i am looking for an 18 or 16 bit player. i apologize for unnecessary words.

Ok, I give up since you can't seem to grasp the concept. I am not railing against redundancy, I am railing against something that is impossible.

16 bits is the native format. Anything greater involves sampling.

17 bits involves sampling
18 bits involves sampling
19 bits involves sampling
20 bits involves sampling
21 bits involves sampling
22 bits involves sampling
23 bits involves sampling
and so on

If you are looking for a player that does not sample then you are looking for a 16 bit player, not an "18 or 16 bit player," which by the way is different than your first impossible request.

is it possible that one can buy a current production player which is 20 bit and no up sampling ?

I need to get a life.