PI Greco SINFORIA CD PLAYER

This is one extraordinary CD player. When the previous owner of this unit said that it was the best sounding one box CD player he had ever owned and had to upgrade to dCS’s Rossini player/DAC/clock ($60,000 three piece combo) to hear the difference, we didn’t think it was that extreme. But we were so wrong. The Sinfonia was just outstanding. It best our Esoteric X-01, X-01D2 and to a certain degree, the P-03/D-03 combo. Our first ten minutes with the player was all that was needed to establish that level of quality over those other players. That is not to say that the Esoteric pieces were bad but on the contrary, they have always been so good, they were the benchmark where we compare other CD players with. But along came the Sinfonia and the benchmark came crashing with it. In analogous term, the Sinfonia is like the Ferrari to the automotive industry. Its construction and design are just pure eye candy. The whole thing looked like a space craft from a Star Trek universe. Its manual top loading design ensured minimal mechanical “vibrations” that a sliding disc tray might introduce and solid chunks of aluminum are used on the front faceplate and all around to give that solidity which all reference level players should be accorded with.

When we switch it over the Esoteric P-03/D-03 with the Sinfonia in our $15,000 system, it changed the listening landscape somewhat. There was a slight improvement in the naturalness of the presentation. Highs and mids were sweeter and the music was more revealing. Imaging was slightly fuller and more forward. This was clearly a “justifiable” $18,000 MSRP CD player. And have to agree with the previous owner, this is a tough to beat one box CD player.