It was hard to hear much of a difference between the APL SACD 1000 and the tricked-out Squeezebox. The Squeezebox has less gain. At one point we maxed it out playing Reference Recordings 30th Anniversary sampler - a very clean and minimally compressed recording. Could have used a bit more gain.
I was pleasantly surprised by the sound quality of the Squeezebox set-up. And the 5As were wonderful.
Bob