I did not have the time nor the energy to go on an audition rampage. A dealer was nice enough to let me try an Arcam FMJ CD23 at home for a week. I think there is something to the dCS converter thing. After one day I decided to go for it. You can say that my venerable JVC 1010 could not, after so many years, put up much of a fight. However, it was good while it lasted. I think time has shown that their focusing on jitter as a source of digitalitis was correct. The Japanese are not deaf you know. (Somewhat interesting aside, I remember reading about a doctor well versed in human hearing whose contention, based on research it seems, is that different nationalities hear somewhat differently depending on what the dominant range of frequencies is in the language they speak. This was years ago. If memory serves, is name is Dr. Tomatis. Such an assertion, if made today, could founder on the reef of political correctness though. End of digression) The uncertainties as to new formats are such that I don't see how someone should mortgage the farm to get a very expensive cd player that can't be upgraded. Insofar as the ones which offer upgrading capabilities, another dealer steered me right when he said that they are so expensive as to make the purchase of a less expensive model, followed by something good in a newer format, less expensive than an all out frontal assault on the biggies. I was eyeing a Simaudio Moon, It's built about five minutes from my home, but price-wise, it is something more like the distance from my humble abode to the moon (pun intended). My recommendation based on a home audition vs. a few minutes of in-store audition of a Sugden (no opinion), another player of French manufacture (hate to be vague, but c'est la vie)(no opinion) and a half hour in-store audition without my own recordings of a Rotel RCD 991, good player for the price. I was forgetting, also spent a little in-store-between-more- important-stuff time with a few other low priced players. Somewhat interesting point: three separate dealers used the Rotel RCD 991 as a foil in trying to sell me something else; in two cases more expensive (one dealer an Arcam or Naim, the other a Linn), the third one, curiously enough, was trying to push a player that is almost half the price of the Rotel: the Roksan Kandy. This last unit, was the most surprising of the runners-up, so to speak, considering its price. It was auditioned under pretty bad conditions. The dealer was a very nice guy, the room was awful, (a throwback to the wall of Japanese speakers days) it was compared with a Rega Planet through Roksan electronics and Paradigm 40 or 60 speakers with unknown (well to me at least) recordings. My conclusion, the Rega was a letdown considering its build-up, both in writing and word-of-mouth. Somewhat sombre, heavier in its presentation, but it may be worth a listen in a better overall system. The Kandy, at least in contrast to the Rega, evidenced a more light weight presentation in a way, that made the music a lot more airy, lively in its overall character, and the instruments better defined. In closing, given half a chance at a home audition any one of these players may have stood a chance at adoption. In the brief period I have had with the Arcam, I have not lived to regret my purchase yet. The reason: the retrieval of details and the rightness of the tone of the instruments. Woody instruments sound, well, woody and brass instruments, well, brassy; a better sense of the harmonics of the instruments (guitar, piano, reeds) which are not portrayed with that sort of one dimensional, one note/one frequency quality. Call it bloom if you want. It simply sounds more like musical instruments in the room. Can't say much more than that. Insofar as 'mo better stuff but used, I just ain't got the time.
