Another vote for the early Phillips gear .... mine an 880 (just below the 960 but still about $1300 back in the day). Heavy as a concrete block, absolutely three-dimensional sound (although premature fade-to-black,as the machine had rising non-linearity below -90db as the early chipsets all did). Mine is not operating currently but I soon hope to have it repaired and then it will go into the system alongside my Oppo 105. I A/B'd it back in 1989 vs Sony's top model, and it beat the pants off of it.
