upgradeable dacs

D'S- I am with you on that. DACs have been steadily improving for the past few years and coming down in price. What used to require $4000 for a great DAC can be had for much less. I suggest you buy used here on Audiogon and try it out. There is always someone who will buy it from you if and when you upgrade. On the other hand, my Eastern Electric DAC is everything I wanted and now I spend money on music and upgrading the player for my computer. Good luck and ignore the "static" you read here sometimes.

Audioengr,

I know quite a few people who don't like upsampling, as well. So far, I personally tend to prefer it but I have heard some very good sound from non upsampling players also. When I say that Redbook is a mature format, I don't mean that in a negative way. To clarify, I just meant that you can get excellent sound without having to spend alot of money. And that if Redbook is all you need I wouldn't be too afraid to buy something now. I also feel its amazing how far CD has come in terms of SQ since it was first introduced. High end designers deserve a huge amount of respect and credit for the work they have done.

"These are recent advancements, so there is still a LOT of gas left in redbook IMO."

Excellent. Honestly, I haven't bought a new CD player and/or Dac in a few years and didn't know they were getting that much better. A little better, maybe, but not much more. Can you list a few examples? I'd like to hear them for myself. I'm a really good salesperson. I can talk myself into buying just about anything when it comes to new gear.

PS Audio Perfect Wave DAC II.

ZD542 - There are some excellent examples at all price points. Here are a few:

Chord Qute
AMR DP777
Combination of Off-Ramp 5 feeding Wyred 4 Sound DAC2 with I2S
Overdrive SE
Teac UD501
Mytek Stereo192

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Lynx Hilo is one with some nice flexibility and upgradeable firmware. If you are running an expensive analogue front end, this unit will integrate it into a digital system below $2k.