Eric, you soooo right. We are all sick of this crap. I have been researching and researching and waiting for "that" product to appear but to no avail. One of the sonic themes that comes out in reading reviews pretaining to digital audio is a certain thinness of sound...ultra detailed yes, but lacking warmth, bloom, bass weight, etc. That is what I crave. You mentioned the Memory Player, and while it sounds promising, who is 10K+ lying around? Anyway, I am planning to a little blinded, A+B testing of digital front ends in the not too near future, and I would like to involve non-audiophiles with good ears and music backgrounds (my wife for example) to keep things real. The potential contenders at this point are:
1. Granite Audio 657 (my CDP)
2. Bolder modded SB3 (Ultimate mod)
3. Modded Sonos + Pacecar + DAC (Empirical Audio)
4. Sonos (w/ ? USB mod or converter) + Exemplar USB DAC
Should be interesting.....
1. Granite Audio 657 (my CDP)
2. Bolder modded SB3 (Ultimate mod)
3. Modded Sonos + Pacecar + DAC (Empirical Audio)
4. Sonos (w/ ? USB mod or converter) + Exemplar USB DAC
Should be interesting.....