Aldi sell a cheap CD polishing machine that will turn those musky used CD into shiny new ones, to go with the new jewel cases. Unfortunately they sold out of the magical machines and nobody there can tell me when new stock will arrive. I’d love to overhaul my entire CD collection in this way to make it minty fresh again.
@Brodric - yeah, thanks… to be honest, they come pretty clean. The cases are cracked, tattered and old… the CDs for the most part are solid. I then rip them into my 8TB back up, then 4TB back up, then into the Nucleus+ internal 4TB SSD. I just got another load of 100 blank jewel cases. Then I talk to @lonson who has 30K CDs and I have 500+ and wow…
Aldi - Yeah, cleaning lettuce…
I shudder to think how long it would take to import all those into my Kaleidescape. Well. I know how long it would take. ((30,000 * 5)/60)/24 = 104 days.
Clever.
Thirty thousand??? Is that possible? And how do you not lose count?
@wiesiek and @badbeef and @Elk,
I bought into the PS Audio SACD I2S concept, which is why I invested in the PS Audio SGCD with I2S interface. The SGCD has quirks too, which are being looked at by PS Audio seriously, I must say.
Regarding supplies, it has been a bad year for PS Audio, they lost the DSDJ and DMP due to dried out supplies. But at the end of the day it are PS Audio labeled products.
All customers see are expensive products with a very short life cycle.
You can not motivate younger or new audio enthusiasts in your videos to invest considerable money into the SACD I2S system (this money is long term investment) and within a year from those sales talks drop that program for whatever reason. Especially not because at that time PS Audio knew OPPO had caused them serious trouble.
As we stand today, the DMP is gone and for potential customers interested in a good SACD player the only replacement/follow up product is with the competition.
Of Octave we know very little.
It would be good that PS Audio would reveal a clear and reliable product strategy.
Instead of telling those customers who, a year ago bought into their SACD I2S concept, how old fashioned they are and that all at sudden SACD’s and CD’s are deemed dead.
That makes me feel rather uncomfortable. Sorry @Elk, as a PS Audio moderator I see you as a PS Audio representative as well. Although I really appreciate the hard work you put into the forum.
I don’t import anything into anything, I just play the discs. Life is too short, and I don’t find computer audio interesting at all.
I hear you. But Kaleidescape is not computer audio. I have no interest in computer audio either.
I’ve been collecting for more than 30 years. And it’s my one vice as I gave up smoking and drinking and think I transferred my addiction to cd collecting. I don’t keep count. . . but I have about 20,000 in the house and 10,000 in storage.
Well, I have no interest or need to import into whatever it is.
I2S has different iterations depending on the manufacturer. Esoteric method is ES-Link. T+A is IPA Link. MSB is Pro ISL. etc etc. All of these methods are proprietary, none are interchangeable. Although, from what I understand, other manufacturers are free to build their digital connection interface to the PS Audio I2S protocol. None of which matters if you choose to use a SACD player instead of a Transport/DAC combination. Which is a good reason to buy a SACD player. Or stick with a brand that has the technical chops to do everything in-house. And a company that has the financial chops to pay the Sony license fees for the required decoding chips and technology. If you opt for a manufacturer that doesn’t have the technical or financial chops, then the longevity of their products is likely to be problematic eventually. Fortunately for me I saw the makings of a calamity early on and bailed out of the ensuing fiasco in time without too much harm done.
With what you spent on the Esoteric stuff, I’d say there was a lot of harm done.
Yeah, that is true. I had too much blind faith in all the DMP marketing preamble. If the promises were delivered upon on day one, like what a customer might reasonably expect (i.e. like what MSB did with their version of a pimped up OPPO transport), there would have been no need to look elsewhere, and thus no harm done. They just forced my hand to jump onboard a different ship.
I have full confidence that PS Audio will take care of any issues that may arise in concern of DMP owners, mechanically speaking (and just maybe…software too) now,and in the future. It’s just the way they roll.
Don’t. 
Not only do I not speak for PS Audio in any way, I have different positions than Paul and/or other PS Audio representatives.
Please also keep in mind I am stating only that CDs are dying out. I am not stating that the format should not be supported. Rather I have specifically stated transports remain viable products, especially as legacy players as many own CDs and will continue to play them.
OK, Elk, we know from Brodric that forum moderators are, rightly so, entitled for benefits, so I will consider your input as sponsored but independent. 
Maybe we are a bit alike. Regardless the relation I have with certain parties, to a certain level, I will not hesitate to give my 2 cents. That is what I like about the discussions here.
Additional to your arguments for disk CD and SACD disk players been viable products:
There are certainly not only legacy CD’s. Al the concerts I have been to and life music I heard in the last couple of years, in different states in the US as well as in Europe, CD’s with that latest music were offered, no streaming or download service what so ever. So there are plenty of new CD releases, that I actually buy and very much enjoy.
These artists, many of them, apparently also do not like the contracts these new streaming services have to offer and see CD’s as the most convenient way to distribute their art. CD’s have no strings attached, they sell them and check in the money, I buy them and enjoy their art. As simple as that, no monthly fees, no contracts to worry about, no internet dependence. Internet providers are probably the worst profit chasers, trying to make us fully dependent on that service. One more reason for disks.
I like and play CDs. I do not stream. I record many concerts each year, on location, and provide the clients with CDs (although some now prefer on-line digital files - this surprised me).
But the sales numbers show CDs are rapidly losing market share. They will be around for a while yet, but for how long?
Hi Brodric, you saw that I got carried away! Glad you considered it funny but still got what I was trying to say.
T+A designs their drives them self, the review in the “Stereo” magazine together with “Stereoplay” and “Audio” the goto places for getting review results in German, a 85 million people, mostly well heeled market stated:
“
Translated:
“In order not to be dependent from unreliable suppliers, who at a certain moment might stop production - many HiFi-fans can sing a sad song about that - , the Herford (Germany) based company builds the linear bearing guided disk drive themselves. That includes the software for final processing. Only the optics are purchased. With this policy, any questions about future spare parts are satisfactory answered and future frustrations excluded.”
Look at the enclosure walls and top plate of that drive!
I saw people questioning the price, this top of T+A’s solid Aluminum built transport tears a EUR 14,999 hole in the pocket of European enthusiasts. Looking at the prices I saw at Axpona reports about their booth I an afraid US and overseas customers need to embrace them selves, according to you this stuff is not even available in Australia.
So there is the advantage of PS Audio and Esoteric.
Like you said, their propriatary IPA link, including supplied cable, does pretty much the same as PS Audio’s I2S link and Esoteric’s ES-link:
This cost is too high for my budget, but considering they offer 3 more SACD payers in a lower price range with Double DAC’s one dedicated to PCM, one dedicated to pure DSD and 2 clocks one for 44.1 kHz multiples and the other for 48 kHz multiples they have plenty of options to offer. Certainly T+A draws larger and deeper holes into your pockets, but as the author of the review Matthias Böde said, “future frustration is excluded”.
So I hope that PS Audio has learned their lesson about being dependent on external suppliers or where in house production is not possible single source suppliers and come up with a reliable product strategy for the future.
I really like how PS Audio products sound and they work their but off to address complaints ad address questions ad let us enjoy this forum. Credit to whom credit belongs. So if they remain to offer disk players, and Octave offers products like Blue Coast Records, download files, CD’s or even SACD’s without tying us into annual contract fees, I certainly remain an advocate to their products. I have lived in family businesses for too long not to recognise and have respect for the achievement of a company like PS Audio to be there, where they are right now. Therefor it is my intent, regardless the quirks to support them.
My, perhaps sarcastic, comments are supposed to trigger improvements that are hopefully appreciated.
@jamesh In light of additional DMP users experiencing this remote anomaly, I would suggest this remote issue be looked at more seriously. I had brought this issue up to you months ago but felt it was minimized and not appropriately investigated. Or at least there was no conclusion every communicated thereafter. See below post/thread.
It is obvious that numerous users (who posted in the prior thread and more who posted here recently) are experiencing pause/play functionality issues for which the DMP itself is being wrongfully blamed. It is evident that the remote is causing the issue for many of us, not the DMP.
We have investigated this at length. Certainly Barry, our lead programmer has in depth. I don’t believe it is the remote, per se. One of the issues we experience with the remote on all our PerfectWave products is a need for line of sight access. Because of
the way the IR sensor is embedded you kind of have to point it straight at the unit, where some other gear isn’t quite so sensitive. Now, I just bring that up as a general piece of information. I too have experienced the same sluggishness and it’s something
Barry almost has licked in the latest firmware update. It’s a slow response from the Oppo/PS interface as best I can tell.
In any case, we’ll keep plugging away at it.