First, jdaniel, you bring up a very good point that I had considered but sort of dismissed, thinking that any general improvement should be at least audible with any well recorded music, regardless of genre. But I guess complexity of the signal is your point, and the subtlies of largescale acoustic ensembles. I have only a handful of classical disks. I don't have a classical music education so I think a lot of that stuff is just lost on me. I am beginning to get into Jazz so maybe there's hope.
About the transport issue, the Levinson 360's has what they call intelligent FIFO. This technology, says the user manual, makes the quality of transport and digital cable less crucial. It's a kind of buffer or resevoir that reclocks the data in such a way as to render jitter practically non existent. The manual goes into more detail and basically says their FIFO is different from some other recent attempts in several important ways. Considering that Levinson sell transports, why would it be in their interest for marketing to lie or misrepresent this feature if it weren't true? Now I know much heated controvesy exists surrounding the claims made about digital technology, some saying digital is digital and expensive cables are theoretically a waste of money and all claims to the contrary are the result of self-fulfilling auditory anticipation, etc. I haven't made up my mind simply because I don't think I have enough experience, listening wise, to weigh in on either side. But judging solely from arguements I've read, I have to at least partially side with the aforementioned critics.
