Speaking of PS Audio...

I own the Jolida JD-100 and it is generally excellent. I have not had the Sony in my home but, have listened to it in the audio store here, several times. The Sony also gave me the impression of being lackluster and steril, but not to the point of disliking the piece. In other words the Sony is a decent player (redbood) but I just could not come to grips with it. SACD sounded excellent but I was not specifically looking for SACD performance when I listened to it.

The Jolida is reasonably dynamic, balanced, extended with some sweetness on top, and very rhythmic (musical). The modified units are suppose to be a notch better and I just about ready to send my unit in for a whirl.

I am sure there are better players but, not so many at the Jolida's price. I have listened to the dcs Elgar at length in my home which is a much more expensive player(actually DAC). It is a better player in every respect. But, I enjoy listening to the Jolida just as much. Go figure!

I'm not familar with the Sony but I do have some experience with the Jolida and a Theta Data Basic transport which from what I can recall is very similar to the PS Audio Lambda. Both used the Phillips CDM9-Pro with a spatial lens filter and shared some other design features that appear to point that they came from the same design. I used the Theta for years and it was a good transport. Over the years I used or demo'd it with a number of DAC's including the very well reguarded Classe DAC-1. I achieved varying results depending on the DAC but even at it's best I still have to say that the Jolida really gets so much right that I decided to part with my transport/dac and interconnect combo.

My experience differs here. The Jolida is very nice player for its price, but if you have the money, spending more of it can get you proportionally more sound. There are a lot of better players and transport/dac combos out there then the Jolida JD100 to look into before settling down, yet the Jolida is worth a try in your system to see if it fits your tastes.

Personally, to my ears, no matter what tube I tried in the JD100 it couldn't touch my external dacs I had on hand to shootout with in terms of openness, midrange clarity, top end extension and air, bass articulation and transparency. The Jolida also gave me a headache with exteneded listening. I listen primarly to sultry, airy and angelic female vocalists and found the Jolida to do a poor job with them, which ultimately was the dealbreaker for me. It's a fine player with many good qualities, don't get me wrong, perhaps the best under a grand, but not the giant killer a few claim it to be. If I listened only to light jazz and classical maybe I could live with its tradeoffs, but I don't so I won't....

Socrates...

Any recommendations? Locally, I'm not finding much to check out before things get really expensive. The PS Audio set-up is the best I've found for the $$ so far. I'm interested in tubes which is why I was thinking of the Jolida.

I tend to listen to jazz, (though not light jazz) acoustic/female/male vocals most of the time. I do throw in some alternative rock once in a while as well as some good bassy pieces. Thoughts appreciated. Thanks.

One speed. I would trust your ears, if you liked what you heard with the PSA setup go for it. You could always try a Jolida at home to demo and sell it if you don't like it without much loss, and it would be nice to have another setup to directly compare it with, as auditory memory is very weak. The Opera Consonance 2.2 is a tube based cdp and supposedly is something special, selling new for about $1700. I will hear one shortly so can't comment on it just. I know of a couple of happy Xindak owners too, both of which can be had with a SACD feature as well, which is nice.

Someone other than the distributor, a large catalog outfit, or a dealer in Idaho has actually heard a Xindak! Get these people to post a review. I was very interested in the Xindak but the total lack or end user feedback, reviews, conflicting info from the distributor, little info on the Xindak website, and the fact that I just couldn't get my hands on one stopped me from taking the gamble on this unknown brand. The Jolida does offer good bang for the buck and is worth a demo in house. System matching is so much trial and error, go for what actually worked in an in house demo because digital gear just doesn't bring back that much money on the used market. Chasing the sonic holy grail could get expensive.