Thank you Pete for putting forth the effort to share the results of your listening session.
The whole idea of these threads is to share our experiences with our fellow audio friends. But with all the whining about level matching to .1db, how much distortion these players have, how can all the "top" players really sound that different, that a manufacturer was there, that the system and music played were not initially noted, etc. etc. etc., who really cares!!!!! The initial report was very interesting. Can we not thank Pete for his willingness to participate and leave it at that?
Even when components are not precisely level matched, it is very evident as to the sonic signature of two products...no matter what the rest of the chain as long as the system is of a highly resolving nature to begin with. Just throw on a 400hz test-tone, match levels with a Radio Shack SPL to 0.5db and put the politics aside! We don't need a fancy test bench of Tektronix and HP gear to evaluate CD players in our home. I just don't see the necessity for us to use our engineering educations to fairly evaluate audio components.
I too think Alex should have dropped off the player and returned later just to keep the focus to the listeners. But with the evaluators all hearing these players compared to each other for the first time, any player could have ended up by the group favorite. So quit whining about a manufacturer being at the session, already! And who cares if the speakers are Pipedreams, SoundLabs, Avalons, etc. The relative differences of the players will ultimately come out the same.
As for how all these players can sound different with one coming out clearly the prefered winner, well, maybe the other players should get a demoted rating? Afterall, Stereophile is loaded with Class-A components and how can so many be rated the state-of-the-art? After having personally heard many such components directly to each other along the years, it is clearly evident that many such products never had any business being rated so highly.
Just like the threads that cover Dartzeel, EMM, Von Schweikert, various power cables, Triplanar vs Schroeder tonearms, etc., people get all upset when their beloved favorite product gets threatened by a newcomer that is the new "king". Can't we all come away from this report with greater incentive to hear all these for ourselves, in our own system, and not put forth so much effort to tear holes in the evaluation? It certainly gives me less desire to share findings if I have to spend days defending each step I took with responses back to my thread.
The whole idea of these threads is to share our experiences with our fellow audio friends. But with all the whining about level matching to .1db, how much distortion these players have, how can all the "top" players really sound that different, that a manufacturer was there, that the system and music played were not initially noted, etc. etc. etc., who really cares!!!!! The initial report was very interesting. Can we not thank Pete for his willingness to participate and leave it at that?
Even when components are not precisely level matched, it is very evident as to the sonic signature of two products...no matter what the rest of the chain as long as the system is of a highly resolving nature to begin with. Just throw on a 400hz test-tone, match levels with a Radio Shack SPL to 0.5db and put the politics aside! We don't need a fancy test bench of Tektronix and HP gear to evaluate CD players in our home. I just don't see the necessity for us to use our engineering educations to fairly evaluate audio components.
I too think Alex should have dropped off the player and returned later just to keep the focus to the listeners. But with the evaluators all hearing these players compared to each other for the first time, any player could have ended up by the group favorite. So quit whining about a manufacturer being at the session, already! And who cares if the speakers are Pipedreams, SoundLabs, Avalons, etc. The relative differences of the players will ultimately come out the same.
As for how all these players can sound different with one coming out clearly the prefered winner, well, maybe the other players should get a demoted rating? Afterall, Stereophile is loaded with Class-A components and how can so many be rated the state-of-the-art? After having personally heard many such components directly to each other along the years, it is clearly evident that many such products never had any business being rated so highly.
Just like the threads that cover Dartzeel, EMM, Von Schweikert, various power cables, Triplanar vs Schroeder tonearms, etc., people get all upset when their beloved favorite product gets threatened by a newcomer that is the new "king". Can't we all come away from this report with greater incentive to hear all these for ourselves, in our own system, and not put forth so much effort to tear holes in the evaluation? It certainly gives me less desire to share findings if I have to spend days defending each step I took with responses back to my thread.