Well, number one, i look at the beauty of the player. It has to look good to be on my audio shelf. Two, the specs. It has to be a great audio player. Three is the price. Being i am just getting into albums again. I don't want to be disappointed with the audio compared to my Marantz 8005 cd player and as a result the money i wasted. So, i'm looking at less than $2500.00 for now, but not etched in stone as i like the EAT C sharp at about $5100 with a jo no5 mc cartridge. I like the API's too, but that is really stretching my budget. I like this API, but its way over my budget and i wonder how much better it could be at over twice the price of the EAT player. I doubt it would give twice the performance. The specs are very close.