Audiolab6000CDT Dedicated CD Transport with Remote - Black

I got this CDT sometime ago when it was still selling at full price (the current $100 discount is because it has recently been discontinued, leaving the 7000CDT and 9000CDT still in production.I initially used it with an OK DAC, and the sound was just OK, nothing special. Based on the reviews, this was supposed to make even el-cheapo DACs sound great. Turns out my DAC had a cracked circuit board and was faulty. That took me a couple years to figure out.Scroll foward to a couple weeks ago. The faulty DAC was replaced by the lauded Gustard R26.The 6000CDT/R26 combo is staggeringly good, at ANY price, and especially for the $2300 that pairing would cost. Everything I have heard about the CDT and Gustard have been fullfilled. Immense deep soundstage, near perfect separation of intruments, miniscule details are revealed and the bass is both deep and tuneful with absolutely no sense of overhang or loss of control. The best sound I have had for maybe a dozen years.So is the sound I am getting because of the 6000CDT or the Gustard? It has got to be both. But what I CAN say is that the 6000CDT into the Gustard sounds maybe 10% better than the identical material (ripped lossless by me) streamed through the Gustard.I then pulled out my old reference CD player...a mammoth 2 box combination that weighs close to 50 lbs and cost me around $20,000 back in the day. Now I could compare this to the 6000CDT/Gustard. And guess what....this extremely expensive player was easily beaten by the system containing the 6000CDT. Vocals were clearer and more carved in space, top end had greater clarity and the bass was much firmer than my reference CD player. Bear in mind, that I have compared this player to many other high ranking CD players in the past, and it always was better.Until now.If you are into tweaky stuff, replacing the fuse in this CDT with something like the HiFi Tuning one (which is what I did) gives incremental increases in clarity, even though this is just a digital transport.What else can I say about the 6000CDT apart from how extraordinary well it works in my system?Well, it never rejects a disk or has any skipping. It always reads the tracks and table of contents flawlessly. It is fairly silent in operation. And although it is a slot loading transport, it has never scratched any of my disks, and I keep them in mint condition-so I would know. Others have commented that this player had scratched their disks, but this has never been an issue with me.The supplied remote is on the cheap side, but does pretty much all you can ask. The black finish I have make the push knobs on the fascia a bit difficult to see and read, so the remote can come in handy.The quality of replay from this unit makes me seriously consider the 9000CDT, at 3x the price (currently around $1500). But I would have to hear it first in my system.

I teamed this CD transport with a BT transmitter and desktop amp (w/ BT aptX receiver.) Clear, beautiful sound; it does one thing, but excels at that one thing.Very satisfied; A value proposition to be sure. I have only had it in service for a few weeks, but so far, better than good.

Over the past couple of years, I've bought several Audiolab 6000CDT's for use in different rooms. I paired them all with Audiolab 6000A integrated amps but varied the speaker arrangements. All of the CDT's arrived in perfect condition and all of them have performed flawlessly, as have the Audiolab amplifiers.My most recent Audiolab6000CDT purchase was used to replace an old Teac CD player that was paired with a Yamaha A-S501BL amp that I'd bought years ago for my office. I was curious as to whether the CDT would improve the sound quality on its own, so I replaced it without replacing the amplifier and was happy to discover that I could instantly hear the difference. The improvement was massive and that system now sounds quite good even though the amp and speakers are not at the same level as my other systems.Therefore, I'm recommending the Audiolab6000CDT based upon multiple copies and years of use in a variety of configurations without a single glitch.Be warned, however...Because I'd had such good experiences with these devices, I also bought multiple copies of the Audiolab6000N streamers, which, unfortunately, proved to be a huge, expensive, mistake. The streamers look similar, seem well constructed and sound good but the incompetently designed computer interface has rendered them so unreliable I do not even use them. So, I got seriously burned by my careless assumption that the company's products would all manifest the same level of quality. Not so...

Great sounding, well made transport. From that perspective I made the right decision. Unfortunately, it is totally 100% unacceptable that this player scratches my brand new CDs. Any CD, really, at any given time. I played 2 new CDs in a row and closely inspected them before and after 1 play. Both had 2 scratches in exactly the same place. Went back and looked more closely at a handful of CDs I've played recently and although they were new too, all of them had some kind of scratches. You can hear it when you put the CD in the slot that it is "grinding" to grab the CD - I think it happens then, not when playing or ejecting. I am as mad, disappointed,frustrated and depressed as I can be. I could have bought the new Denon for the same price. May have not sounded quite as good, but would not destroy my valuable CD collection. Being an overseas brand, not much hope in getting this addressed, but believe me, I will try. If leaving bad reviews all over the place works, I'll update my post here. I would NOT suggest buying this thing and be skeptical buying any Audiolab product.