Some people say the source is the most important. But this is really the record or CD disc not the player. Also, I have heard it said that lack of dynamic range is a major problem why Hi-Fi will never sound real. But then almost every recording is compressed which reduces dynamics. I don't know why this is done but instead of all these exotic DAC's and upsamplers why not a player that will uncompress the music back to how it was originally recorded?
07-19-02: Cdc I think with music that has been compressed a lot, I have to put the volume really low. Even then it sounds too loud. And just bumping up the volume a hair has a big effect on volume. Sometimes I hear a song and don't really like the tune but it sounds good from a sound quality perspective. When I then look at the CDP (which shows playback sound level), the meter is all over the place. An indication of less compression? Hopefully with all those B&W speakers as monitors, we'll be getting better quality recordings in the near future. Cdc (System | Threads | Answers | This Thread)