Ayre CX7e vs. Meridain G08

Mr. Hansen: I recall JA once writing something to the effect of cautioning that his jitter test results should only be compared to his own past numbers -- that they can't be cross-compared with numbers from other sources, and that it's where they fall within the spectrum of his past results that matters, rather than the absolute numbers themselves. Given that proviso, and the fact that he frequently characterizes how his figures for a unit under test compare to his historical upper echelon, one would think he couldn't fail to notice and take corrective action if needed (or note the poorer performance of recent players) should his results show a clear trend of worsening over time. Since he hasn't written anything like that, my assumption would be that if you contacted him about this question he'd probably say that, notwithstanding any one-time unspecified changes to his test set-up or method such as you noted, there is no such overall trend. Don't know if that would be correct or not, but personally I'm not about to go through my back issues of Stereophile and track his figures to try and find out...

Mr. Hansen, First let me say I hope you're recovering well from your accident and will be back over at Ayre soon.
Second, thanks for contributing to this forum. It's always relevant to have a designer with your reputation contribute.
I think you are absolutely correct in your statements. I have felt there might be a reason along these lines but I also felt JA would stay on top of his test equipment.
It was a surprise to see jitter at the level JA found with the C5xe knowing how good it sounds and what results from jitter. I also know your attention to detail in your products. Both the CX7e and C5xe are superb products in their respective price ranges.
Since JA does all of Stereophile testing, it casts doubt in my mind how much merit to give to some of these measurements at this time. It seems something is a little off.
I know test measurements aren't everything but I do believe certain parameters on a test bench do correlate to the sonic end result.
Keep up the good work over at Ayre.

I went back and read the CX7(not the CX7e) review from the May 2003 Stereophile. JA stated the CX7 had some of the lowest jitter(159 picoseconds of peak to peak) of any player he had measured.
The higher levels of jitter seemed to start showing up about 2 years ago or less. It would be interesting to re-measure that same player now.

Mr. Hansen: Thanks for your expanded comments and the link, I did not recall that JA admitted to some mystification about his results. I certainly agree that these jitter tests seem to be exquisitely sensitive and should probably be taken at something less than strictly face value. But if you reread my post, I think you'll see that nothing I said was in disbelief of your statements.