I feel kind of stupid answering my own post here, but I had not done any research before making the original post. Now I see what's out there, and on second thought, nowave, maybe you need to work for one of these companies. Seems the Japanese, as always, are way ahead of us, and the major manufacturers are right behind. Based on this quick tour, it appears the products are out there and approaching us -- with audiophile quality according to Yamaha -- very fast. Yamaha targeted audiolovers with 2002 and 2003 products, but the new wave is driven by DVD recorders with hard disks offering as an added bonus multi-format playback and CD-quality DAC.
These beasts may very soon make dinosaurs out of the recent $900 single-disk universal players. And the Gateways and Dells of the world are going to drive these prices down quickly.
Bman
