I thought some of you might be interested in a demonstration/shoot-out that we had this past weekend at the monthly meeting of the Audio-Video Club of Atlanta. The main purpose of the demo was to show the differences between standard red book digital and high resolution digital, i.e. 24/96-24/192. Different souces were chosen to show that you can get into high rez without spending a whole lot of money. Sources included Oppo Blue Ray player, the SE version of that player, a Benchmark DAC-1, and the PS Audio PWT/PWD combo. My main concern before the meeting was, would we be able to hear the differences in red book and high rez, and the differences in the different sources, in a large room with 30-40 people in it. The system included an AR tube pre-amp, an EAR tube amp, and a pair of the new Vandersteen 2c Signature II's. A disc was made for each source of the cuts that were going to be played, so it was just a matter of switching inputs on the pre-amp to hear the cut on a different source. All sources were volume matched as close as possible before starting. After the first cut had been played on all sources, it was clear that not only were we able to hear the difference in the red book and high rez versions of the same song, but also each source had a sound that was different from the others. The music cuts ranged from classical, jazz, and rock to show that all types of music are available in high rez. After all the cuts were played, the group was asked to pick their favorite source, and more highrez music would be played on that system. There were some interesting choices. Some chose the standard Oppo over the SE version. Go figure. The winner by a large margin was the PWT/PWD combo. I heard several comments later that it was not close. A lot of people picked the PWD being driven by one of the OPPO's as a transport as their second choice, but they were surprised that the PWD did not sound as good with the Oppo as it did with the PWT. They said the the PWT really made the PWD sound so much better.
The meeting was quite enjoyable, and was proof to a lot of skeptics that differences can be heard, sometimes easily, between equipment types and software. As I told a lot of people afterwards, if you can hear a difference in an environment like that, the difference would be magnified in a smaller home setting.
Thanks,
Stu