Toshiba XR-Z90

The original version of the x-rare Alpine AD-7100, Kenwood L-03DP and (brief) Luxman DX-104, the Toshiba XR-Z90 (Aurex XR-Z90 in Japan) was part of the most expensive 1st generation CD players and a beautiful, if a bit dark, object with an all-aluminum front.

Without the Sigma Drive outputs which Kenwood added - Aurex also had its speaker control system named Clean Drive but didn't include it in the XR-Z90.

Toshiba would go on throughout the 1980s building many CD players for Luxman (and therefore Alpine) and many other brands :
if Philips served as OEM provider for most high-end players with its CDM-1 drive and TDA-1541 converter, Toshiba made a bit more money making CD players for the wider part of the market.

The XR-Z90 sold ok but Toshiba, like Sharp and its DX-3, didn't really need direct sales : OEM business was less of a hassle and finally more lucrative :)
However, the digital treatment and d/a section are centered around all-Sony ICs.

Also distributed under the Aurex XR-Z90 name in Europe but very very sparingly.
Magnificent prototypes of what came before the Z90 are visible in the Invisibilia section of this website.

Detailed technical description, nudies at the indispensable vintage-audio-laser.com.