Hi-Rez Highway: Re: results....... by mikel New high resolution SACD releases, players and technology.

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Posted by mikel (A ) on February 6, 2005 at 09:08:44

In Reply to: Re: results....... posted by Jack Seaton on February 6, 2005 at 08:11:55:

Jack,

this Esoteric gear was the same gear used at CES (i assume that gear was played for 4 or 5 days continuously there at minimum).....my friend had no idea how much time it had on it prior to him recieving it. he has been playing it for the last week pretty much full time. that would be at least 300 or so hours. i tried to describe the exact context of how i set the gear up to allow anyone to draw their own conclusions about my perceptions.

i have broken in lots of digital SOTA gear.....my opinion is that the degree of performance difference between the Meitner and THIS Esoteric gear is quite a bit more than what could be caused by breakin issues. OTOH who knows for sure? what i can say is that this session was in a totally familiar room and system. sometimes you just do the best you can.

sorry my comments weren't more clear.....it was very late last night when i posted this and i'll try to expand and clarify.

the Esoteric was less open on top and less airy than the Meitner. my comments on the issue of 'ultra-detail' have to do with the texture of individual instruments.....it was like they were 'highlighted' within the musical whole.....with un-natural texture. i would say that some might call this texture etch....others might like it.

the Esoteric did not bring out more detail in the soundstage....in fact i thought the Esoteric seemed to get slightly congested and less 'together' on musical peaks and orchestral peaks compared to the Meitner. the backgrounds on the Esoteric were not quite as 'black' as the Meitner......the Meitner had slightly better ambient retrival......which then results in the more expanded stage i described.

the Esoteric was tonally similar to the Meitner but images were less dimentional and flatter.....mid-range clarity and detail retrival was good on the Esoteric but better on the Meitner.

the bass extention was similar on both the Meitner and Esoteric but the Meitner's bass was more dynamically alive and had much more dynamic range and contrast. to me dynamic contrast is a particularly important issue and really allows music to come alive....it allows the slightest nuance to become musically significant.

there are questions here. what is the exact breakin level of the gear? did we have all the settings correct? did the fact we ran the Esoteric with RCA cable have a significant effect?

my opinion is that the gear was set up correctly.....that whatever breakin issues there were could not be significant enough to change my conclusions.....and that the RCA cable issue is typically pretty minor and most definitly not big enough to change anything.

there was no doubt what we heard.

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