Law of Diminishing Returns - CD/SACD Players

Ok, so this is NOT a comprehensive comparison. But it may nevertheless be interesting to some.

I was listening to all my CDs via 2 ganged Sony ES changers (CDP-M555ES) and I was pretty happy with the sound. The convenience of selecting any of up to 800 discs outweighed the supposedly ‘better’ sound of my Mac MVP-851 DVD/CD player, so I hardly used it and eventually sold it since I owned no DVD-A discs anyway.

A audiophile colleague visiting on a business trip spent some time listening to my system and encouraged me to consider getting a high-performance DAC to feed from the 555s. I thought that might be the way to have both convenience and performance. So I bit, and started looking for a DAC. Well, you know how things go…I ended up WAY over my original budget and ended up with an Esoteric P70/D70 combo, which had glowing reviews as a state-of-the-art CD playing system.

I also decided to improve the CD selection interface by adding an Escient E-40 changer ‘manager’ and a 3rd M555. Now I had a great video interface to catalog, find and select my CDs and a capacity of 1200 CDs. I ran changer optical to the Escient and from there via S/PDIF into the D70 DAC. I was also using a 4th M555 as a ‘staging’ unit for newly purchased CDs. This unit was routed directly via its analog output to my Mac preamp, with the Toslink output sent to the DAC.

After getting this all set up, I finally sat down to listen to all these options and make some comparisons of sound ‘quality’. What I heard (or didn’t ) really surprised me.
First, I matched all the levels from the different CD playing options using a pink noise disc using headphones (which I used for all comparisons). I find that headphones really let me concentrate on the music in its little nuances better than using my main speakers.

Soooo, here’s what I found…

1) M555 analog to PA vs M555 optical to DAC to PA
Indistinguishable from each other. Maybe the M555 transport was the limiting factor? Or the Toslink was canceling any improvement from the D07 DAC vs the Sony built-in DAC?

2) M555 optical to Escient S/PDIF to DAC to PA vs M555 analog to PA
Indistinguishable from each other. At least the Escient conversion of the optical input from the M555 to S/PDIF into the DAC didn’t affect the sound quality.

3) P70 transport via dual AES/EBU and clock sync to D70 DAC (upsampling at 176kHz plus word sync) to PA vs M555 analog to PA
Esoteric ‘better’ (music overtones, microdynamics and bass ‘fullness’), but I had to listen REAL hard to find this very small improvement. Over the loudspeakers, this subtlety was lost.

In a nutshell, I was pretty disappointed. I fully expected the Esoteric combo to ‘wipe the floor’ as many here often state about one piece of equipment or the other. So what do I do now? Sell the Esoteric and use the cash for other stuff? Get new ears? Maybe all the trash talk about Sony changer capabilities is just that….talk.

Ok, going back to sleep now.

Thanks for listening.

I'm sure this is heresy, but the difference in sound quality between my Sony CDP-M555ES (400 CD changer) and my megabuck Esoteric P70/D70 transport/DAC combo is virtually nil. So either my ears are waaaay bad, or the Sony is a damn good unit.

99% of the performance of SOTA for 5% of the price?

Cal good post and reflects my POV. There is a point of diminishing returns. Not to say the super expensive players are not woth the "bang for the buck". If I were spending over $5K I'd look for a used Jadis DAC. But as you say if you can get 90% of the sound quality from a lower cost unit , then why not, especially if you have a tight budget. I had a Rotel and a NAD cdp. Then I went with a Cayin 15. Blew out the water the NDA and Rotel. Here we can't compare on a % ratio, the Rotel and NAD were not even in the same league.
Then I went with a Cayin 17, which can be compared to the Cayin 15, both in the same league. The 17 offered 10% improved sound quality. 10% doesn't seem like alot but in audio terms 10% is a nice gain, IOW a justified upgrade. If another tube player comes along that I feel can best the 17, I may go for it. As long as its areasonable asking price. I pd $1K for the 17 so am willing to fork out $2K if I can get another 10% better resolution. But that 10% gain is doubtful, 5% may be more like it, and that may not be enough to justify spending another $2K.

Does the Audio Aero Capitole present a 8X's(800%) better musical image vs the Cayin 17? All I know its 8X's the price.

It's interesting to see some of the experiences here. A year ago, when I contracted for a new home, I - as you might expect- began the search for some new equipment. Specifically, I wanted a second turntable and a pair of speakers. During the course of that research I saw a used Shanling CD player at a very low price. I asked the dealer to switch out the Esoteric CD player he was using for the MBL demo and use the Shanling instead. I've always been a bit skeptical of differences among CD players and would not have been surprised to hear little/no difference. Instead, the difference was dramatic. That started the process of looking at current players which I partially described in my post above.

Overall, I did not hear vast differnces when I was A/B ing similarly priced players. I found Ayre vs ARC, Esoteric vs Accuphase, Cary vs Musical Fidelity (etc) sessions inconclusive. However, I also tried to include one cheaper player in every A/B session. The differences were always audible - and usually pretty convincing to me. The new Rega fared best of the cheaper units. I hope this provides one more data point for you.

Marty

PS - I ended up buyinng 2 players: A Rega for my den and a Cary for my listening room.