That sucks. They could have shipped another even if they had to bill and credit it back when the first one was received. Sometimes these places don't use their head. I guess there's always the fluke but bad out of the box isn't a good sign. I emailed AA a question about the CD players I received an out of office reply, I waited until the time frame elapsed and sent another email. I got two responses the same day. The original guy I didn't like his responses very well and I had to email back for basic info like his hours and he didn't tell me what time zone etc., the second guy was nice and gave good info on the actual sound quality. So I wanted to deal with the second guy but since they are on commission I guess the first guy must have found out and said I was his customer or something. So unless I'm swayed to buy the X-Ray I won't deal with them.

I have a plan though, I am going to order an ERC-1, when I get it in listen and give it some time I will borrow a NAD c545 to see which is best. If all this stuff about cutting out the middle man etc holds true the ERC should win. Frenchmon, if you had a free Saturday or Sunday afternoon you could bring the X-ray over for the fight. If not, I will have the c545 and my CJ and AN DAC's. I have my Krell integrated out and using it in my second system, I could hook it up for the shoot out then we could have 3 players plugged in set levels with my SPL and either take turns switching or have some one else do it. The ERC should have a pretty hot output with a peak voltage of 9v.