I think it was a lot of CD player for $400.00. I agree if I had paid the full price it would have been a bit pricey. If I had not come across this on Ebay I would have gone with the Rotel or NAD units. I figured "audiophiles" are probably on this unending quest for the perfect components. So they must be trading on ebay. What I was surprised to find out was most of this stuff holds very high resale values. But there are deals out there. You need to be careful and read every bit of info over and over again to make sure you don't get ripped off. I feel I got a great deal on a great product and actually I have kept in contact with the seller who turned out to be a great guy. He was very concerned that I be totally satisfied with the transaction. This after getting a lot less in the bid than he expected. He thought he put a reserve on and since it was his first sale on ebay he screwed up and the reserve was not on. I had seen the same item with the same upgrade sell 2 weeks prior for $500.00. Others can say what they want about upgraded electronics makeing or not making a difference to the performance of a source but the bottom line is
1 are you happy with the performance?
2 was it worth the money (in your opinion) that you spent?
Like I said I was not the original owner so I have no idea if the upgrade improved the performance or not. I do know that this is one of the best sounding CD players I have heard. It even breathed life into my 25 year old Bose 901's which I believed were beyond hope, which is what brought me to Axiom in the first place.
oz