Just a second post to echo what Grannyring is reporting. There is something of a "house sound" that I believe connects Collin’s judgments to those of Jeff at High Water Sound, Dr. Vinyl here in Maryland, and a few others. Those of you who have heard the High Water setups at various audio shows will know what I mean: the sound is just immediately engaging, relaxing, and emotionally moving - not because it is colored or euphonic, but because you find yourself in a musical, not electronic experience. Until hearing (and then purchasing) the Galle, I had not heard this from digital sources. The closest I got was from my Audio Note CD player, with its excellent digital chip (the texture of the music was there, but extraneous information also). I have heard very expensive digital setups ($70,000+) with vanishingly low noise floors and massive detail, but in the end, there was still something "two-dimensional" and/or unreal about the voice or the instrument. No stereo system will put you 100% into Carnegie Hall, but for me, the Galle has meant that each evening I face a genuine and happy choice between digital and analog front-ends.
