Price Paid:  $200.00 from Circuit City

Summary:
This is the first CD player I ever bought. I purchased it about 14 years ago at circuit city and I think I paid about $200 for it.

Since then I have owned 3 DVD Players and 2 other CD players and none have played CD's as well as this unit. I keep thinking I'm going to buy a new unit because I want a remote and after a couple of months I switch back to this unit because it sounds better than everything else.

The build quality is excellent. The tray always ejects smoothly and quietly and I have never had issues with skipping.

Strengths:
Great Sound. Very Reliable.

Weaknesses:
No Remote. At least I didn't pay extra for it.

Similar Products Used:
Many DVD Players and CD players.

Summary:
There was a time when I flatly refused to accept the possibility that I would one day purchase a CD player. To this day I prefer the sound of a decent turntable over any other audio source; but when faced with the dilemma of new recording artists only releasing on CD format, I started the long and arduous search for reasonably sounding CD player.
I couldn't believe my ears when I heard the R1! It wasn't harsh... the salesman left it playing for 10 hours a day, six days a week. (Talk about being burned in!) Imagery and depth of field? I had to keep comming back for a listen to prove that I wasn't "hearing something".

After negotiating a price I walked out with a one of his 'open stock' units for $300.00 CDN (cash!) $200.00 less than retail.

I've still got the same player. Never had it in for repairs! There's not a CD it won't track. And even better, when I popped on a pair of Tara Labs interconnects the sound explosion was better than my Rega Planar 2; so I upgraded to the Planar 3 just to remind myself what it's supposed to be all about. This belongs in a Best Buy catalogue!

My rating is relative to the price range.