CD Player break in period

Gawdbless, excellent theory. . . I wish it matched reality more than it does. I bought the complete String Quartets by Antonin Dvorak recorded by the Panocha Quartet on Supraphon. Read the various online reviews. . . they range from glowing to shamelessly salivating. Played it on my system (X-01 Limited, ARC Ref 3, JRDG 7M monos, Maggie IIIAs) . . . Truly fab performance, but. . . what an ear bleeder! Did a high bit rate OGG encoding for my PDA. . . it's wonderful! Made a copy of a key track on a test CD that I took to RMAF last fall. The track remained unlistenable in most systems--price no object. Only in a couple of cases it was bearable for more than 30 seconds. Tube CDps were no help--they screetched happily along with everyone else. I suffered the least on what turned out to be my favorite system--consisting of Primare CDp, JRDG Concerto linestage, JRDG 312 amp, Vienna Mahler speakers in the Soundings HiFi room--the rest of the test CD was magnificent. In the 'littler' Soundings room I played the same torture track on Primre CDp, Primare integrated, Vienna Beethoven Baby Grands. .. scary, but the rest of the test CD was wonderful. My own Mahlers arrived shortly after the show--I had ordered them during the summer. . . out with the Maggies and in with the Mahlers. With 310 hrs of breakin on the Mahlers, new tubes on the Ref 3 and a couple thousand HRS on the X-01 the Panocha Quartet gives a great performance, I can take a few tracks at moderate listening levels. . . but the recording still sounds etched.

Cerrot-
If I'd paid $7800 or however many dollars it cost for an expensive cd player then It had better play EVERY cd that I put in it and play It darn well to boot! None of this 'great cd's sound great but lesser recordings sound poor' malarky. Totally unacceptable.


Guido-
Why should It not be reality? I mean high end hi-fi Is nothing If not very expensive.

Is it the (alledgely) poor sound quality the cd or does the fault lie with the hi-fi equipments Inability to play the cd musically?
I personally think the latter.IMO.
My test cd Is of Albert Ammons/Pete johnson duets recorded 1940's? or sometime before then,obviously not up there with Telarc, Decca etc but still very musical and dare I say it playable and Enjoyable?

Gawdbless,

(If I had an expensive CD player, I'd have the P03/D03!)

I don't think my player makes poorly recorded CD's sound poor because of a flaw in my system, but rather because it is an incredibly revealing player, and is doing what it should. I don't want a player that masks things, but, rather, reveals all to me. It is like a very good hi-def TV - the good looks good but the bad is, well, bad. (Hi def looks awesome on my Pioneer Elite but standard TV looks pretty bad-).

There's a Miles Davis CD where, in the midle of a track, you can hear foot steps across the soundstage. Some believe you should not hear that, as it disrupts the experience. To me, I want a player which extracts everything from the recording, albeit, good - or bad.

Unfortunately, having a high end, revealing system can be a trade off. I don't listen to them much (anymore) but some of my older rock recordings from the 1970's sound pretty bad on my system, because they were recorded poorly. On my buddies inferior system, or one of my car systems, it is no where near as evident. (If I must play them, they go in the alesis masterlink which is not as revealing).

Funny thing, I had started digital photography a while back with an entry level camera (Nikon D70) and lens. All my pictures looked great from the start. When I upgraded to their top of the line (camera & lens), boy, did my pictures look bad. The new rig showed all my poor photo taking techniques. The learning curve took a while, and now I take pretty good pictures. The trade off is I need top shelf technique to get incredible shots but with the lesser quality rig, technique barely mattered. I feel this is similar to music reproduction. The Phillips DVD player I have in the garage doesn't show any flaw in any recording---nor does it exploite the incredible sound of a very well recorded piece of music. See where I am coming from? I prefer the extra time, work, expense, etc. to get as close as I can to whatever I am trying to get close to. That's what rocks my boat. I understand it may not be everyone's cup of tea.

'If a CD player makes a poorly recorded CD sound decent, it is adding - or taking away something. I do not want either'.

'To me, I want a player which extracts everything from the recording, albeit, good - or bad.'

cerrot- I think you are contracting yourself.

Oops, Should read CONTRADICTING. If I made a typo.