Jasutter, then where does perfect sound lie? Is there such a thing as a perfect dish, a perfect car, a perfect wife, or husband?
Everything made by man is imperfect, even if you subscribe to the we make everything camp, with companies such as Burmester or T+A you will invariably come to the realization that somewhere along the lines you will find a better something out of that chain.
Take for example Naim, Naim makes great components, their speakers were decent never great, and their cabling is okay at best.
However, Naim’s electronics are excellent when used with many speakers sounds fantastic and we did a shootout of the Naim power cables vs the AQ and again no contest there and the stock Naim speaker cables are easlily out gunned by companies such as Wireworld.
We have the outstanding T+A electronics and their wonderful reference class CD/SACD player Dac, however, again, the Light Harmonic Davinci and the Aqua Forumula did sound even better. Also their cables weren’t good.
So the moral of the story is that nirvanah in any brand is very difficult and you really need to judge each component in a chain and see what each piece does and if you can get better results by moving into a different companies products in each catagory,
Sometimes company A’s amplifier and preamplifier is magical, sometimes mixing company A’s preamp tube with company B’s solid state amplifier will be magical.
Sometimes Company A’s amp and preamp and digital will be magical while other times adding an entirely different companies CD player or Dac will sound better.
If you belong to the mix and match approach s best camp, you will invariably be using the best of each product catagory that you have found which works well with the other parts, unless your favorite brand makes, loudspeakers, electronics, cabling, and sources, you will have to try something else.
The other thing is that when you have all the same everything like in a Burmester system you are subsribing to one companies vision of what sounds good which may or may not be a 100% what you find pleasing.
This is the point where mixing and matching different brands and different producdts might flavor the system to give you 100% off what you want.
Think of it like cooking if a dish is too salty add sugar, conversely if a dish is too sweet add salt the addtion of the sugar or salt is not frowned upon, the finished dish is celebrated as tasting delicious.
Our approach is too judge each part in a chain individually.
Sometimes the best systems are all made out of different components sometimes it is the same compaies amp and preamp with other companies digital.
The nice thing about high end is that you can subsribe to any camp.
We have heard all Linn systems as well as all Burmester and many others over the years. No ones approach is right it is up to you to find what you enjoy.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ
