Yes, well... once we have our Open Baffle speakers nicely worked out (fine-tuning the baffles, placement, drivers, crossovers, cables)... then the whole issue of "sounds better" as it applies to a "source"... such as a CD player (in whatever format one likes) becomes a terribly subjective experience.
Some music lovers like their music highly detailed, others like a smooth all-over "organic" gestalt to the presentation, others like a holographic sound, or prefer harmonic "weight" and richness, or value transparency above everything else, or they like their music on the warm-side of "neutral" and so on... enough variations to keep the Audio magazines printing issues with endless articles on CD-player-comparisons for a very long time... or at least until the format changes.
Anyone who has not used an equalizer to hear what it can do to "modify" or adjust the sound of any particular musical offering through their OB's (no matter what the source format), would further deepen their audio education playing with the built-in iTunes equalizer.
With the equalizer in-play, you can adjust the music's all over frequency range, so that it sounds quite different in terms of the emphasis of where the music "plays" on your OB's (ever wonder what the BBC "bump" would sound like on your OB's for example?)... you can bring out the voice... or a particular instrument... or set of instruments... or help a weak recording to sound more robust... or more detailed in a particular frequency gamut, or deeper in the bass, for example. All of this translates beautifully within the intensely dynamic and responsive performance capabilities of Open Baffle speakers!!
And that means that you can also make the music sound somewhat like it might sound through many different brands of high-end CD players... each of which, for the most part, emphasis a particular set of sound parameters that appeals to a particular listener.
Many years ago I learned that there are no stand-alone "best" components... it is rather the synergy among one's audio gear that makes music come alive in our home audio experience. Changing cables, for example, has, again for the most part, become just another way of getting around not having bass and treble controls on our preamplifiers or amplifier-receivers. A most unfortunate result of audio engineers getting lazy and fewer and fewer buyers making demands on them.
I did not mention in my original post, that with iTunes, you get hundreds of "internet" radio stations that cover a very wide-range of different musical genres. Some stations have a fairly high resolution musical signal. With the ability of using the built-in equalizer, I can fine-tune the music being played on the internet radio, that is being sent directly to my OB's... so that the music sounds very convincing!!! It may be a bit shy of CD quality... but I do not always listen "critically"... and so Deborah and I find ourselves listening to internet radio through our OB's much more now than from our stored (on the internal Apple Hard-Drive and using iTunes) CD collection. And sometimes the music on internet radio is truly sublime!
Several months ago I was going to buy an FM radio and began to research my options... around the same time, I began to listen to internet radio... and then it became so obvious that my options for listening to all kinds of music through internet radio was vastly richer than what I could "receive" through a traditional FM player. It was like having a gold-mine in one's backyard and thinking it would be nice to buy some gold coins!
Also, using the volume control on the built-in equalizer in iTunes is terribly handy... I leave the volume control alone on my amplifier once I set it to a convenient level (a redesigned 1950's EL 84 Heathkit 151A... thanks Dr. Rayle, for your helping me to choose this Open Baffle friendly, audio masterpiece) and the bass and treble controls as well... then I use the iTune volume control and fine tune the frequency gamuts from the equalizer... it is simple and incredibly effective. I like simple!!!!
With Warmest Regards ~ Richard
