Tbg - very good point. In my experience there really is no "best" one box player for every situation. At the top of the heap, they are all very good however each has its share of shortcomings - unfortunately. No matter which digital source I used, I always wanted something more. Certain tweaks took each player closer to some of those wants yet somehow opened a gap elsewhere. Regardless of player, I always felt something somewhere was missing and I was never truly content regardless of which player was on my rack.
After investing relatively small amount of money in an analog source, it became apparent how far off I was in my perception of each players "perfection". What once seemed like steps in the right direction now seemed more like a host of "digital effects" which masked and somehow audibly alleviated several of the flaws primarily related to CD media itself.
Side by side, digital to analog, even at the highest levels of digital technology ... digital sounds incomplete and hence echoes the feelings I had all along - something was missing.
CD only has so much information on the disc. We know this, yet we hope that by using better sources, we can overcome the deficit of information and/or perhaps correct some of the problems most of us hear. In many cases this works and we are happy... However, I often feel as if the difference between various players is more-or-less a simple digital effect employed by the manufacturers to cajole us into believing there is more. Much the same as how companies building Home Theater Receivers (for example) have "Church", "Stadium", "Hall" type settings designed to make us feel as if we are in a different environment.
How far off are we before a manufacturer has an effects switch which changes the sound of a player from Sony to Audio Aero, Accuphase, Audiomeca, Electrocompaniet, etc. at the push of a button?
It doesn't really take gobs of oversampling to make CD's sound good... (Audio Note) but in some cases multiple DAC's sound fantastic (Accuphase) so who is right and who is wrong? They are both worlds apart in how they achieve what they set out to accomplish yet both make the most out of the format.
Of course I am a bit frustrated right now with digital but that said, I have a feeling we are listening to effects in one way or another with each of these "best" players. It all boils down to which of the effects we like the best I guess.
