Side by side? No, but I sincerely doubt that you are going to find anyone who has. I have heard both and I reported what I heard to be the differences. To be fair, the performance of the player may have been handicapped by the components downstream. To be sure, one would have to have both in the same system, but like I already said, that's probably not going to happen.
As to what reviewers claim to hear, and their motivations? Let's not go there...
Aurum is a very small Canadian company that markets their components as a whole system: CD player/preamp with active speakers. You're usually not going to find the CD player off by itself somewhere. However, under the pressure of a Digital-Crazy North American market, they may have to market the CD player separately...