Thanks for your thoughts.
The Ikemi is a dealer demo, which I have been assured is well broken in. And we used a sound level meter to make sure the volume was almost identical. I'd say it was a fair test.
As for the not being able to tell the differences between the DVD player and the CD player when used as a transport, as I understand it, what that says it that the clock slew on both was very similar. It seems obvious that the Ikemi did a far superior job of sending the clock information to the DAC. Otherwise, digital data is digital data. As I have been assured by a number of engineers, the difference between transports is mainly their mechanical engineering of the clock (a very difficult feat that accounts for a vast difference between transports). Jitter as described by most audiophiles is a slightly different concept in engineering.
The Ikemi is a dealer demo, which I have been assured is well broken in. And we used a sound level meter to make sure the volume was almost identical. I'd say it was a fair test.
As for the not being able to tell the differences between the DVD player and the CD player when used as a transport, as I understand it, what that says it that the clock slew on both was very similar. It seems obvious that the Ikemi did a far superior job of sending the clock information to the DAC. Otherwise, digital data is digital data. As I have been assured by a number of engineers, the difference between transports is mainly their mechanical engineering of the clock (a very difficult feat that accounts for a vast difference between transports). Jitter as described by most audiophiles is a slightly different concept in engineering.