Who remembers California Audio Labs?

I still have, and listen to, my pop's hand-me-down Aria CD player. Everything works fine, even the remote. 

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/5oGQwprgkNY/maxresdefault.jpg

(The above image is not mine but is an example of the unit) 

Admittedly it doesn't get much use as all of my CDs are ripped but now and then I'll pop in a CD just to keep it limber. 

Happy listening.

I remember - had CAL-15 cd player for many years.

It was an excellent sounding player - resolving, with deep bass and non-fatuquing sound.

I upgraded it to Sony 5400ES super audio player and cannot state that Sony sounded better with red book CDs. 

Great sound, but plagued by numerous quality control issues. After my fourth unit, I was done.

@bojack 

You have a point- I did have to have my Icon repaired a few times. 
Fortunately, almost all of my hifi gear has been trouble-free. 

There are so many hidden treasures from the 1980s / 90s.  A handful of years ago, I saw a great deal on a CAL Alpha DAC and had to go for it.  And what a find indeed!  This is the kind of thing you read about finding at a garage sale or thrift store that you take home and it just knocks your socks off.

The Alpha has been a great match with a $300 4wpc integrated tube amp and budget bookshelf speakers to build this vintage system connected to a desktop computer system.  I use the computer's audio board's TOSLINK output to the Alpha but it also has RCA SPDIF, ATT glass and AES/EBU inputs.

The Alpha was pretty good with the Sovtek tubes, but a pair of 1960s Telefunken 12AX7's was quite a refinement in smoothness.  Throwing in some spare $$$$ power cables and ICs lying around provided another revelation.  If such cables can be justified in a $20k DAC, why not try them in the Alpha?

Due to the speakers' and amp's limitations, I can't fairly evaluate the Alpha's frequency extremes capabilities, but the Alpha and the budget amp bring on a level of musicality that I have heard many 5-figure systems fail miserably.   I have been wanting to try this against the Lampi B6 DAC in my main system but it's such a pain to tear systems down and move around components......so maybe one of these days.

One final note: I was surprised to see no ventilation atop the unit's chassis. Even though the unit barely gets warm, I had a friend with a drill press drill a couple rows of 1/8" holes above the tube pair.