"Thanks......but do you think you could describe the difference from The Arcam to Cary and/ or Ayre."
There is quite a big difference, but I think both are excellent. I have an Arcam FMJ33 myself so I can give you a pretty good idea what each sounds like. I understand that you 23 uses a different dac chip but I find that they are not too different sounding.
Ayre/Cary are 0 feedback, fully balanced designs and are known for their high resolution and very pure sound. Also, since both desginers are known for making state of the art analog equipment, the analog sections of the players are every bit as good as the digital. A lot of people don't take that into consideration when buying a digital product. For me, the biggest difference is the dynamic contrast. There's great seperation between soft and loud, and how transients have that jump or impact that vinyl does do well, but digital struggles with. There's also a lot more resolution and the imaging is outstanding. The downside is that their not quite as forgiving and will expose more flaws in the recording and equipment.
The Arcam is very different. Its has a polite, conservative, character to it. Its very smooth and can be listened to for long periods of time. Its not as "exciting" to listen to as the other players but that doesn't make it bad; just different.
If you have ever heard Wadia and like it, then go for an Ayre or Cary. If you like the sound of Levinson, Bryston, Parasound etc, I think the Arcam is the better choice.
One other thing to note is that if you choose a Cary, they give you a lot of options. You can choose things like upsampling vs not upsampling and switch back and forth between Tube or SS output section. I'm typing this from memory so I would look at Cary's website to see exactly what the different options are.
