I heard it in my home - Dan brought it over. I only heard it side by side with my stock SCD-1. His tube stage XA77ES was much much better than my stock scd-1. No comparison really. I can't really say if the kern scd-1 was better or worse than the modwright tube player. They are quite different. One has tube warmth, the other has solid state resolution.
I'm happy to offer up my system for a shootout. I doubt it would be conclusive given the tube vs solid state sound of each unit.
I have heard the same thing about the balanced outputs. I know that my modified sony was 'optimized' for balanced output during the upgrade - not sure what that means. I know my modified unit sounds much better on balanced than single ended. The stock unit had roughly the same sound quality on balanced vs single ended.
I'm happy to offer up my system for a shootout. I doubt it would be conclusive given the tube vs solid state sound of each unit.
I have heard the same thing about the balanced outputs. I know that my modified sony was 'optimized' for balanced output during the upgrade - not sure what that means. I know my modified unit sounds much better on balanced than single ended. The stock unit had roughly the same sound quality on balanced vs single ended.