First of all, we pay half the cost of the show displays we share with Jim Salk and neither of us are paying to display other brands of equipment. Do you want me to ask Jim to allow me to bring in some "really good" B&W Diamond speakers or similar to display against the Salks? My clients are not whining that we are not using good enough speakers at our show displays.
Neither Jim or I are into audiosnob marketing. The Soundscapes were designed using AVA electronics, there is no good reason to expect them to perform better on grossly overpriced audio salon brands of electronics.
Regarding using a "hi end" CD transport (audiophlake nonsense of course), a multi purpose transport would not hurt anything, but it would be slower to load than a purpose designed CD player only, kind of a pain for demo purposes.
The Songtowers and AVA Ultravalve got about as good a review from TAS as any products ever has, both designed without magic capacitors, wonder wires, mung shu dots, welding cable wires, or any other overpriced voodoo that suckers keep throwing their money away on.
The point is we are both trying to demonstrate to show buyers is that it is not necessary to blow a fortune to have the very best audio there is. It appears that it is very difficult to get that message out to as many as we would like to.
We will keep on trying.
Best regards,
Frank Van Alstine