emm labs dac2se vs puccini

From my experience if you compare dCS, EMM, and Esoteric it is very hard to say one is better than the other - they are all outstanding and would be suspect of those that claim huge differences and that one is clearly superior (none of these pieces kill the others), not that you might not have a preference, but that can just as easily be attributed to personal taste, recordings, system context, and room accoustics - I'm not surprised by your findings. I personally like EMM, but I respect those that prefer the others; but not defintive claims of superiority.

i agree. People that claim to hear differences own one brand over the other so they are somewhat prejudice when they listen.

ABX is a tricky test. It can easily trick your mind. The only way to test it a long term listening. Listen for a few days, and the change to the other one. The differences will be plainly audible.

By the way, I am not claiming there are not difference between these great digital brands, I'm only saying that one should be careful with the idea of one of these being the best, they are all good, they are slightly different perhaps, but one can and should live happily with any of these top players from EMM, dCS and Esoteric - I think they are much more alike than different, an no one of them "kills" the other. Which will you prefer? I don't think anyone can honestly tell you that with these pieces, though I can honeslty tell you that a CAT JL2 will sound better to 99% of listeners compared to an NAD integrated - those differences are pretty obvious, and not to difficult to make a legitimate claim that one is "better". I agree with topfinadv that much of what is said here is a manifestation of liking what we own and describing what makes our gear so good (there are also plenty of folks with good ears, and pretty observational skills that provide good insight into the differences between equipment - just be a little leary of equipment that is claimed to "blow away" anything else in existence - I've never heard equipment that much better compared with similarly priced equipment. One must distinguish between good judgement and unbridaled enthusiasm - there is a lot of good equipment out there and nobody has a monopoly on that.