Is the EMM DAC6e or DCC2 /CDSD the best out there?

Well I had assumed that when you say "get out of the way of the music" you were referring to the invisibility of your speakers. Anything else to me is a reflection on the improvement of a system as well set up speakers are indeed invisible and to me get out of the way of the music as you term it

How do you know that the new stands, new cables,new cartridge etc are not creating some sort of sonic signature that "is" in the way of the music and creating a coloration that is partial to "your" ears. I am just uncertain as to why you suggest that the additions you made have created a state of musical neutrality. How can you be so certain?

I feel this is a reasonable question that we all must ask of ourselves. I have said time and again that with any new piece of equipment one must ask himself whether he is hearing something better OR is he merely hearing something different.

"Well I had assumed that when you say "get out of the way of the music" you were referring to the invisibility of your speakers."

it is not possible to isolate issues to one factor.....and more than a few speakers 'disappear'. in addition there is more than one version of 'getting out of the way of the music'.....i'm sure many systems do that.

i'm referring to an overall ability of a 'system' to 'meld' together and allow the source and speakers to be optimized.....maximum info from the source....and the listener then recieves the 'whole'.

i am most definitly referring to more, better and closer......as opposed to different.

that is the beauty of my Colibri cartridge......it tells you so much that if the delivery system for that info is not 'just right' it sounds like garbage. there is no different...there is only right and wrong.

which is not to say that my or anyone's system is totally without colorations......but that they are fairly insignificant IMHO to my ears.

MikeL, Thank you for the invitation! I've never heard your vinyl setup, but I am sure it is really great.

I am sorry to say, but it would be impossible to visit you before the CES show in January, so please accept my invitation and visit us at T.H.E Show.

Do you have any type of stand alone CD Recorder (Pioneer for example?) If you don't, I can send you mine and some black CD-R discs. Would you mind to record your best sounding vinyl directly from your phono stage to the CD Recorder and bring the CD-R to my room at T.H.E Show?

Regards,
Alex

Alex; you will be welcome here any time it might work out.

as far as your generous suggestion; unfortunately my current setup for vinyl utilizes a pre-production darTZeel preamp with only BNC outputs operational. therefore i have no way to input the phono signal into a CD burner from my phono stage/pre. even if your burner had a RIAA chip that would accept the direct signal from the tt; that would miss the 'magic' that the darTZeel phono/pre is doing.

my own dart pre is due 'yesterday' (the hope is before the new year); it will have multiple outputs that will work fine.

i have not burned CD's from Lp's in the past; what level of A to D is sufficient? and is that level resident in your burner?

i am currently in the market for a standalone CD burner (focused on improving redbook, not on burning CD's from Lp's......why would i want to dumb-down my Lp's anyway?) and have read all the current buzz on the Reality Check and other approaches as well as different CDR's. i am looking for some clarity on which direction is best and then plan to jump into that.

in any case; i'm not sure the timing for CES will work with this scheme......but i am game for it however soon it can be worked out.

i do look forward to hearing your latest at CES.

Guidocorona..yup the UX-01 was broken, not so sure about the Ayre, though, it got better and better but still, just something very mechanical about it, which, in my experience is not like Ayre. My wonderful dealer, who did an "oops" when he sold me the UX-01, never got in another X-01 for me to try, so, oh well. It sure does look better than the Meitner in my opinion, but, gosh I just love the Meitner sound. Will try your recommendations on the shunyata.

Thanks