Essentialaudio - Two sets of evaluations took place. A blind, level-matched comparison in San Diego, and a non-blind, level-matched session in LA.
I take this opportunity to commend the voters who participated in both sessions. I know the systems they each use at home and they differ significantly from system used in either session. Despite this (and their differing tastes in music), I appreciated that they really gave the evaluation of each pairing their honest appraisal. We all knew that not doing so would taint the results.
I have noted in a previous post and will do so here again that I purposely left out system details so as to keep the focus on the players and the results. The opportunity to repeat these comparisons will present itself and well definitely take into consideration forum member recommendations.
We did not set out to create the most scientific of comparisons, but instead made the most with what we had to work with while making sure that we had as level of playing field as possible for each player involved. It just so happened that the fellowship and hospitalities ended up being very enjoyable too.
We also did not seek to create a definitive set of results that can be extrapolated so that it could be relevant to yours or anyone else's system. In the end the results of the San Diego blind comparisons reflect the opinions of 5 voters on two great classical recordings played though 5 highly regarded digital players in a resolving full range system on that day.
Similarly, the LA results reflect the opinions of 4 voters (two of whom did not participate in the San Diego comparisons) on one great jazz recording played though 3 highly regarded digital players in a completely different full range system the following day.
Id do it again in a heartbeat!
I take this opportunity to commend the voters who participated in both sessions. I know the systems they each use at home and they differ significantly from system used in either session. Despite this (and their differing tastes in music), I appreciated that they really gave the evaluation of each pairing their honest appraisal. We all knew that not doing so would taint the results.
I have noted in a previous post and will do so here again that I purposely left out system details so as to keep the focus on the players and the results. The opportunity to repeat these comparisons will present itself and well definitely take into consideration forum member recommendations.
We did not set out to create the most scientific of comparisons, but instead made the most with what we had to work with while making sure that we had as level of playing field as possible for each player involved. It just so happened that the fellowship and hospitalities ended up being very enjoyable too.
We also did not seek to create a definitive set of results that can be extrapolated so that it could be relevant to yours or anyone else's system. In the end the results of the San Diego blind comparisons reflect the opinions of 5 voters on two great classical recordings played though 5 highly regarded digital players in a resolving full range system on that day.
Similarly, the LA results reflect the opinions of 4 voters (two of whom did not participate in the San Diego comparisons) on one great jazz recording played though 3 highly regarded digital players in a completely different full range system the following day.
Id do it again in a heartbeat!