Back in the day I was trying to figure out how to come up with $12k, because I thought I needed a Theta Digital setup. This was before HDMI was a required technology. I was so close to buying their $3500 DVD player, but at the last minute I found they didn't design it, but it was instead a Pioneer with some upgraded components. So I ended up saving $2500 and buying the region-free modded player I still have in my sig.
Theta has still held a fascination to me. They skirt the line between snake oil, and making use of every possible minuscule audio improving technology. They'll talk about Litz wire, skin effect, and fully differential designs in one breath, but tell customers to not use aftermarket power cables (unless they are UL rated and can safely deliver 15 amps), or conditioners because they more than likely will current-limit.
They were actually bought by ATI at one point. Here's a quick blog post which sums up their situation as of February 2009:
http://pqltd.blogspot.com/2009/02/rip-theta-digital.html Unfortunately, nothing had changed by the July update, and still nothing has changed today. They're promising a Blu-ray player for Q4 2009 (that's now), which has a feature set, and back panel which looks suspiciously like the Oppo BDP-83. And their HDMI input to their pre/pro is still being held off until Q1 2010.
