Brian ,
Rhetoric aside , have you tried the Critical Mass Grand Master black label platforms in your own system ? I would then welcome your opinions positive or negative.
Blind shootouts are welcome but there are as many who disapprove as see the benefits of such an exercise . I for one welcome the challenge.
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Tbg , the article is open to public view. In my statement I was simply extrapolating from 2 paragraphs in the review which indicate he preferred the Critical Mass under his source component :
{ " Back at home, after spending quite some time in the latest configuration with the Micro 40 under my turntable and the Critical Mass Systems Grand Master platforms under the universal player and preamp, I decided it was time to try out the Grand Master I had purchased to go under my turntable in its intended application. At first I had planned to move the Micro 40 back under my universal player, but after pulling it out from under the turntable to install the Grand Master I got lazy and decided "what the heck, I'll put it under my preamp instead," just temporarily.
Much to my surprise, I ended up preferring this configuration. Although this is most probably not where I would have ended up without the Grand Master platforms to go under my source components, this configuration provided the best overall performance for the whole system. Whether spinning records or optical discs, the results were sublime. My preamp absolutely loved the Micro 40 and as a result, so did I. This was unexpected. In fact, I would have expected my previous configuration of Micro 40 under turntable and Grand Master under preamp to be superior " } .