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Blind Shoot-out in San Diego -- 5 CD Players

On Saturday, February 24, a few members of the San Diego, Los Angeles and Palm Springs audio communities conducted a blind shoot-out at the home of one of the members of the San Diego Music and Audio Guild. The five CD Players selected for evaluation were: 1) a Resolution Audio Opus 21 (modified by Great Northern Sound), 2) the dcs standalone player, 3) a Meridian 808 Signature, 4) a EMM Labs Signature configuration (CDSD/DCC2 combo), and 5) an APL NWO 2.5T (the 2.5T is a 2.5 featuring a redesigned tube output stage and other improvements).

The ground rules for the shoot-out specified that two randomly draw players would be compared head-to-head, and the winner would then be compared against the next randomly drawn player, until only one unit survived (the so-called King-of-the-Hill method). One of our most knowledgeable members would set up each of the two competing pairs behind a curtain, adjust for volume, etc. and would not participate in the voting. Alex Peychev was the only manufacturer present, and he agreed to express no opinion until the completion of the formal process, and he also did not participate in the voting. The five of us who did the voting did so by an immediate and simultaneous show of hands after each pairing after each selection. Two pieces of well-recorded classical music on Red Book CDs were chosen because they offered a range of instrumental and vocal sonic charactistics. And since each participant voted for each piece separately, there was a total of 10 votes up for grabs at each head-to-head audition. Finally, although we all took informal notes, there was no attempt at detailed analysis recorded -- just the raw vote tally.

And now for the results:

In pairing number 1, the dcs won handily over the modified Opus 21, 9 votes to 1.

In pairing number 2, the dcs again came out on top, this time against the Meridian 808, 9 votes to 1.

In pairing number 3, the Meitner Signature was preferred over the dcs, by a closer but consistent margin (we repeated some of the head-to-head tests at the requests of the participants). The vote was 6 to 4.

Finally, in pairing number 5, the APL 2.5T bested the Meitner, 7 votes to 3.

In the interest of configuration consistance, all these auditions involved the use of a power regenerator supplying power to each of the players and involved going through a pre-amp.

This concluded the blind portion of the shoot-out. All expressed the view that the comparisons had been fairly conducted, and that even though one of the comparisons was close, the rankings overall represented a true consensus of the group's feelings.

Thereafter, without the use blind listening, we tried certain variations at the request of various of the particiapans. These involved the Meitner and the APL units exclusively, and may be summarized as follows:

First, when the APL 2.5T was removed from the power regenerator and plugged into the wall, its performance improved significantly. (Alex attributed this to the fact that the 2.5T features a linear power supply). When the Meitner unit(which utilizes a switching power supply) was plugged into the wall, its sonics deteriorated, and so it was restored to the power regenerator.

Second, when we auditioned a limited number of SACDs, the performance on both units was even better, but the improvement on the APL was unanimously felt to be dramatic.
The group concluded we had just experienced "an SACD blowout".

The above concludes the agreed-to results on the blind shoot-out. What follows is an overview of my own personal assessment of the qualitative differences I observed in the top three performers.

First of all the dcs and the Meitner are both clearly state of the art players. That the dcs scored as well as it did in its standalone implementation is in my opinion very significant. And for those of us who have auditioned prior implementations of the Meitner in previous shoot-outs, this unit is truly at the top of its game, and although it was close, had the edge on the dcs. Both the dcs and the Meitner showed all the traits one would expect on a Class A player -- excellent tonality, imaging, soundstaging, bass extension, transparency, resolution, delineation, etc.

But from my point of view, the APL 2.5T had all of the above, plus two deminsions that I feel make it truly unique. First of all, the life-like quality of the tonality across the spectrum was spot-on on all forms of instruments and voice. An second, and more difficult to describe, I had the uncany feeling that I was in the presence of real music -- lots or "air", spatial cues, etc. that simply add up to a sense of realism that I have never experienced before. When I closed my eyes, I truly felt that I was in the room with live music. What can I say.

Obviously, I invite others of the participants to express their views on-line.

Pete

petewatt
sebrof's avatar
sebrof
835 posts
 
Sabai - My point was that these guys ran the test, however unscientific and however flawed, and posted their impressions. They have no obligation to anyone to do better than that. We must take the OP for what it's worth to us.
The reason I posted is because so often, so very often, people post about how a component is the best or the worse, or their jaw dropped or whatever, with absolutely no reference to anything. These guys went above and beyond what so many posters do in my opinion, that's all.
aplhifi
515 posts
 
Hello Sabai,

Very good points, thank you!

The day after this shootout, we went to Hollywood and had another session at the house of a movie director. He has a dedicated “audio bunker” designed by Cardas and tuned by Rives Audio. This gentleman was the one who brought the Meridian and dCS, and since he liked dCS better, we did not try the Meridian again. The gentleman who owned the EMM Labs combo was very kind to attend as well. He brought some expensive power conditioner (sorry don’t remember the make) that he felt was the perfect match for his EMM gear. To our surprise, we got the same result as the one in San Diego.

One of the things we learned at those two shootouts was that the EMM gear sounded much better with power conditioner or re-generator, while the NWO was best when plugged direct to the wall.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Alex Peychev
www.aplhifi.com
sabai
2,027 posts
 
Hello Sebrof, I understand but there was far more going on with this shoot-out, IMHO. The organizers had no obligation to do anything but since they went to the trouble to do the shoot-out and one of the manufacturers was present there was a certain importance attached to this by at least one party -- an interested party. I am not talking about scientific here, I am talking about taking many things into consideration that, to my eyes, were obviously missing, in order to do justice to all the equipment being tested. In this shoot-out no variables were considered. There were short listening sessions using 2 pieces of classical music and a show of hands. That was it. I call that flawed. It is like taking a day-trip to London and then going back home to tell your friends you have seen London. The shoot-out had so much missing and so much was left unsaid. If they were really interested in doing a serious shoot-out they would have chosen more than 2 recordings from the same genre, they would have had a choice of wiring (power cords with different plugs and IECs, interconnects, speaker wires), they would have had speakers from at least 2 different manufacturers, they would have had at least 2 high end power conditioners from 2 different manufacturers -- and they would have asked the maker who was allowed to be present to leave the room. There are a whole host of subliminal factors that can enter the picture in a situation like this. What if all the CD makers had been allowed to attend? Their very presence in the room would have changed the psychological ambiance, IMHO, even if they were all completely silent. The neutrality of a listening room is made up of more than sonic neutrality. If you call an event such as this a shoot-out that means you are looking to eliminate all the contenders except one. Well, I think that when you are considering high end CD players you need to take more care. After all, this shoot-out was organized in order to post the results on Audiogon, not just to share the results among those present. This was done for public viewing. True, the participants and organizers had no obligation to do anything at all -- but they should have done more to do justice to the equipment and to the readers on Audiogon. If I were organizing or participating in a shoot-out of high end equipment knowing that the results were going to be published on Audiogon I would have taken much more care. Not enough factors were factored into the shoot-out to give those reading about it a clear picture of the potential of the equipment being judged. It was the emphasis on elimination -- not on potential -- that was the focus of the shoot-out. This was the most serious short-coming of the shoot-out, IMHO.
sabai
2,027 posts
 
Hello Aplhifi, Thank you for your comments. They reaffirm one specific point that I was alluding to. Some players do well when configured with a specific piece of equipment and others may do better with a very different set-up. So if you compare both 2 players with the same set-up you may not get the best possible results from both players for comparative purposes. It would be difficult to judge the relative merits of the specific pieces of equipment in each set-up -- including the CD players. Looking at cables and plugs I find there is a big sonic difference between various makers in my system -- and within the product line that each maker offers there is also often a very big sonic difference, as well. The synergy of each system -- the best that it can offer sonically -- is dependent on many factors, IMHO. I am sure I would be very satisfied with one of your products -- I have no doubt about that. But since they are beyond my budget I am doing the best I can to maximize the sonic potential of my EMM CDSA SE using various cables, associated equipment, accessories and tweaks. So far, I am very happy with the result. But if I ever had the opportunity to A/B with one of your APL players I might be in psychological sonic trouble -- wanting to have one of your APLs without being able to afford it.
aplhifi
515 posts
 
Hello Sabai,

I agree with you! This is the very reason why when the official part of the blind shootout in San Diego was over, I specifically asked to audition the winners EMM and the NWO without the power re-generator. To everyone's surprise, the NWO sounded much better, while the EMM clearly showed its need for power conditioning. So yes, it is very important finding the right synergy if you want to extract the best from your audio system.

Best,
Alex Peychev
www.aplhifi.com
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