As the author of this thread, and with the passage of a few weeks,I would like to make three retrospective comments.
First of all, I want to thank all of you for your inputs, views and opinions. Unfortunately for me, almost immediately after my original post, I left the country for a month-long cruise. And given technical difficulties, black-outs and the high cost of internet communications at sea, I was unable to participate in the dialogue that ensued. Having said that, I feel that we are all fortunate that ctm_cra, who was the prime technical architect behind the blind shoot-out, did such an extraordinary job of filling in all the details and answering your questions.
Second, in my opinion, the value in this exercise is not just the comparison of top-of-the-line CDPs as objectively as possible. I stongly feel that our blind shoot-outs (and we've done more than one in San Diego) point out the fact that, though difficult to set-up and administer, such comparisons are not beyond the compentence of knowledgeable audiophiles. Perhaps, this observation will not go unnoticed by professional reviewers and editors in both print and internet published audio guides. The fact that these guides have been very reluctant to do so-call "double blind" comparisons before may or may not have anything to do with philosophical or financial considerations. I just think that this is an idea whose time has come.
Finally, having participated in this experience, I cannot tell you how much pleasure I derived from the opportunity to listen to some of today's top CD/SACD players. As I said in my original report, the dcs standalone, the EMM/DCC and the APL NWO 2.5T were all were deemed to be outstanding. But the fact is that one did come out on top -- the APL NWO 2.5 -- and it did so in convincing fashion in the eyes of the consensus of our group. I mention this in part because I recall one excellent question raised in an earlier post: i.e. if one player is viewed as clearly superior, wouldn't we expect to see one or more of the participants in the shoot-out purchase it? Well it's now been six weeks since the event, and I can report that three of the participants have since ordered 2.5T's from APL. One was the Meitner owner, another brought both the dcs and Meridian players, and myself (I traded in my APL Denon 3910 with custom linear power supply).
First of all, I want to thank all of you for your inputs, views and opinions. Unfortunately for me, almost immediately after my original post, I left the country for a month-long cruise. And given technical difficulties, black-outs and the high cost of internet communications at sea, I was unable to participate in the dialogue that ensued. Having said that, I feel that we are all fortunate that ctm_cra, who was the prime technical architect behind the blind shoot-out, did such an extraordinary job of filling in all the details and answering your questions.
Second, in my opinion, the value in this exercise is not just the comparison of top-of-the-line CDPs as objectively as possible. I stongly feel that our blind shoot-outs (and we've done more than one in San Diego) point out the fact that, though difficult to set-up and administer, such comparisons are not beyond the compentence of knowledgeable audiophiles. Perhaps, this observation will not go unnoticed by professional reviewers and editors in both print and internet published audio guides. The fact that these guides have been very reluctant to do so-call "double blind" comparisons before may or may not have anything to do with philosophical or financial considerations. I just think that this is an idea whose time has come.
Finally, having participated in this experience, I cannot tell you how much pleasure I derived from the opportunity to listen to some of today's top CD/SACD players. As I said in my original report, the dcs standalone, the EMM/DCC and the APL NWO 2.5T were all were deemed to be outstanding. But the fact is that one did come out on top -- the APL NWO 2.5 -- and it did so in convincing fashion in the eyes of the consensus of our group. I mention this in part because I recall one excellent question raised in an earlier post: i.e. if one player is viewed as clearly superior, wouldn't we expect to see one or more of the participants in the shoot-out purchase it? Well it's now been six weeks since the event, and I can report that three of the participants have since ordered 2.5T's from APL. One was the Meitner owner, another brought both the dcs and Meridian players, and myself (I traded in my APL Denon 3910 with custom linear power supply).
