Digital Player - but which format

[Black Stuart]

Hi all,
Re-evaluation time again - I do it seriously every 4 years or so, it keeps me sane.

I've been buying quite a lot of CDs on E-bay and some of those are SACD, some Cheskys' etc. even though I'm a vinyl man. Problem is new stuff is coming out in digital whether I like it or not. Plus I shall be offloading around half my LP collection. I don't fancy doing this in Spain, I would prefer to do so in France, my Reggie stuff would go like hotcakes there - whatever.

So, digital but which; some say that in the future everything will be downloaded onto hard disk, I feel this is not for me, I actually like handling things.

I'm minded to try a CDR with a choice of valve or digital output stage (I have a particular one in mind) but then it does'nt have SACD. I think that it's clear now that DVD-A is dead. I'm not prepared to pay lots of money either, Look at all those who paid handsomely for Gyros and their PSUs - only to find that old technology was cheaper and better, though here the cheap DVD machines come to mind.

I also have no inclination to virtually rebuild the machine - a Tent clock yes, that I would consider for it's obvious advantages but why don't the commercial boys do that from new build?

I certainly think that it should have an SACD facility, should it have a valve o/put? As always there seems to be two distinct camps blinded by their own kant. Opinions please.

Black Stuart