no difference between 4k meridian & 400 DVD?


hi,

i am really starting to doubt this whole damned industry. today, i tried a little experiment. i burned a copy of my favorite k. jarrett CD. i put the CDR into my 508.24 and the original into my 2-year old sony DVD player. i cued the players up simultaneously and did an extensive A/B for about an hour.

guess what? the differences in sound quality were so minor as to be almost inaudible. if anything, the 508 had SLIGHTLY better response at the frequency extremes and SLIGHTLY better dynamics. i'm not sure if i honestly could tell them apart in a double-blind test.

i always believed my main system was fairly transparent. meridian 508 CDP & 502 preamp, bat vk-75, AZ silver reference IC's, decent copper speaker cables (forget what kind), avalon arcus speakers. the IC connected the DVD to the 502 is cheap audioquest copper. i am using a monster hts-5000 power conditioner with vibrapods under the front end and BDR cones/pucks under my amp.

given that the 508 COSTS 10 FRICKING TIMES MORE, i wanted to hear a major improvement over my cheapo DVD but there just wasn't one. my ears are fine...for example, i heard substantial improvements after installing the pods and especially the BDR cones. so...wtf is going on here?
s2k_dude
I've had the same experience, took out my cd player which lists for $5000 and sounds great and replaced it with a $79 apex ad1500 dvd player!!!! I listened to 'On Every Street' by Dire Straits I swear the apex was every bit as good my music cd player on the first 2 tracks. But on the 3rd track 'When it comes to you' my cd player vindicated itself, with the apex the rhythm and pace was off almost as if the song was playing in slow motion, it just didn't sound 'right'..is it really worth it to pay 10-20 times more for a component for a small incremental gain in performance, that depends on your finances..But anyway I learned a lesson from now on I only buy products for which I can hear audible diffrences so for me that would be speakers & preamps, amps I won't be paying extra for digital or cables since I can't hear the difference....of all the comments here I concurr the most with Docwarnock
Sorry you felt I attacked you.All I wanted to say is your method left you open to attack.Make another CDR and do the comparisson with both.Then I will respect your comments.
Audio truth is very welcome.
A few questions:

What type of connections are on the speakers? Bare wire? Spades? Bananas?

Which Sony DVD player?

A few observations:

I own a Meridian 508.24, a Sony DVP-S9000ES, an old Toshiba 1200 DVD player, and an even older CAL DX-1 CD player. For CDs, the Toshiba sounds better than the DX-1, the Sony sounds better than the Toshiba, and yes..the Meridian sounds better than the Sony.

Lets face it, digital technology gets cheaper to make with each passing year. It broke my heart to hear my 5 lb clunky Toshiba blow my beautifully crafted DX-1 out of the water, but life goes on. That said, I do believe that Meridian makes extremely high quality equipment. My advice--listen to it one more time...and then keep what sounds best.
argent: spades and sony 550D.

i am very skeptical of digital now but i haven't given up yet. my preamp may be the culprit here (in terms of choking off detail) although i think it sounds pretty good considering what i paid for it. a local dealer has a used BAT vk-50 he wants to unload. i may audition that one next week. if so, i'll try my experiment again.
Try to borrow some higher quality speaker cables from the dealer as well so you can experiment more faithfully. As for the two copy thing... I can not tell a difference between a cd copy and the real thing on my pretty revealing system, but then again ive never really carefully compared them.