I think the clear minded on to something here. Digital gear differences are small indeed today. But in my auditioning of the Pioneer DVD Players in the lower price end I noticed a high end brightness that might be assumed to presenting more information throughout the frequency spectrum. I become fatigued listening to it compared to a good transport and DAC. But Sony ES has made some great one piece players in the past that get right to the base of the performance vs cost curve. Interesting that Wadia, Krell and others have used versions of the Stable Platter drive in many of their high end designs derived from the Pioneer Elite PD65. I have used the Pioneer Elite PD65 sitting on Bright Star Rock 2, MSB DAC II with Monolithic HC-2 Power Supply, Harmonic Tech AC11 Power Cord to Power Supply and Synergistic Research Power Cord on Line Filter all feeding ARC and Threshold Class A gear (Sysnergistic AC Coupler on AMP)to B&W 801s3 with double runs of biwired HT Pro 11+, Magnan Vi Balanced interconnects. I can always double blind test tell the difference in a DVD 414 player BUT it is not like 8 (out of 10) vs 2 more like 8 vs 5.5. I am confident if this stock market keeps sliding more and more people on this thread will asking also about value in this, too often, fanatical habit. Happy listening.
Am I deaf?
I've got three CD outfits here on loan from my dealer. A Linn Ikemi, a Bel Canto DAC 1 running off a Pioneer 525 DVD player and a Classe CDP. They all sound almost EXACTLY the same. After hours of switching cables, power cords and anything else I could think of, I did form a slight preference. And that was for the Pioneer DVD running straight into my amp! This freaked me out so much that I subjected my wife to the same test. She also preferred the DVD player. What in the hell is going here? Associated Equipment: Classe CAP 100 integrated amp, Sennheiser HD600 headphones, Von Schewikert VR3 speakers, Cardas and Kimber cables.
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- 20 posts total
- 20 posts total