That's precisely my point. On the other hand, i have my doubts that it sounds better "than a lot of players that approach 10x its price."
I hear this all the time about equipment of all kinds; amps, cd players, tube amps and anything else under the sun. In most cases the people who say such things are proved wrong or at least the weight of their reviews are diminished over time as many people who bought into the hype start to see that these claims are full of hot air. On the other hand, i've never owned a Toshiba unit so i can't rule it out as something i wouldn't mind trying out to see how it stacks up to my current source. I'll go digging around head-fi and see how well the toshiba 3960 fares in comparison to other sources. It's been discussed a lot at head-fi as well.
If you have have no experience with the unit why are you even commenting? From what I've read your only contribution to this discussion is that your source is SOOOO much better and you doubt the the Toshiba could stack up. Did I miss anything?
I didn't say my unit is better anywhere in this thread. No where. Mind reading all my comments? You'll see that i haven't done anything to bait an argument, just posting my opinion based on experiences and at the beginning i was being tongue in cheek and that didn't seem to come through at all. I even disclosed (maybe not early enough) that i never owned one of these Toshiba units. What i said is that he could do better for the money based on the equipment he (Tim) owns, based from the list he provided. I don't think my tone of writing is coming off as hostile or condescending.
If you post something, expect people to post their opinions, whether or not you'll agree with them, there's no need to throw a fit. I doubt the hype behind the toshiba based on past experiences of owning similar budget equipment, that's why i decided to chime in. I'm not looking to be a jerk about it, just discussing other options. What i've read at head-fi from people who have more experience with source swapping is that the toshiba is good, but not a stellar unit like other people are making it sound like. People who come from cheap, low quality sources naturally feel the Toshiba decks are a great deal.
However, it sounds like a highly mod-able unit and that definitely is appealing for these bargain toshiba's. I like players that can be modded and i'll admit it sounds like an appealing unit, but the fact that its acting up is disturbing.
i ran a search for Toshiba 3960 on head-fi, here's all the hits:
http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/search.php?searchid=678031Some mention other models close to it for a similar price. I still think it sucks that the Toshiba unit Tim owns is acting up. I still feel that sources should funtion perfectly for an extended period of time.