A couple of weeks ago I attended the Heathrow show with a friend of mine. Great show, and I got to listen to a LOT of kit.
The key area of interest for myself was CD players, as I'm pretty sure that my existing setup could be improved upon. Some of the stuff at Heathrow didn't impress at all (e.g. the DAC64 just sounded HARD to me and a bit too "in yer face"). However, I did hear a couple of CD players that certainly made me think twice. One was the Esoteric X-01, but I know how much that costs, and I'm not willing to pay more than the price of a new Fiesta for a CD player.
The other was the Consonance Droplet. Here's a not to great pic:
Huge thing. Weighs around 25kg, upsampling unit with a valve output and a high quality Sony transport. The thing on the top that looks like a pan lid is what you pull off to get to put the CD onto mechanism, so you can't put this in the middle level of a rack. Also uses a "puck" to keep the CD stable, as per Naim CD players. Bit odd, but I quite like that. Styling is very personal. I think it looks pig ugly, but most other people I've shown photos to rather like it.
Yesterday I went for a listen to one, whilst also taking my own front end (CD transport and DAC) for comparison.
Initial impressions for the first 20 seconds were "this sounds just the same". That was until you realise all the extra low level detail and nuances that the Droplet was pulling off the disk. With my own CD there was a rock solid image of the singer infront of you doing her biz. With the Droplet, it was MUCH easier to tell how she was modulating her voice whilst singing, adding inflections into the music. As this was happening with every instrument, made it MUCH easier to create a believeable and enjoyable presentation.
So, looks like I've found what I'm looking for, just got to drum up the funds now. I'll keep you posted.
The key area of interest for myself was CD players, as I'm pretty sure that my existing setup could be improved upon. Some of the stuff at Heathrow didn't impress at all (e.g. the DAC64 just sounded HARD to me and a bit too "in yer face"). However, I did hear a couple of CD players that certainly made me think twice. One was the Esoteric X-01, but I know how much that costs, and I'm not willing to pay more than the price of a new Fiesta for a CD player.
The other was the Consonance Droplet. Here's a not to great pic:
Huge thing. Weighs around 25kg, upsampling unit with a valve output and a high quality Sony transport. The thing on the top that looks like a pan lid is what you pull off to get to put the CD onto mechanism, so you can't put this in the middle level of a rack. Also uses a "puck" to keep the CD stable, as per Naim CD players. Bit odd, but I quite like that. Styling is very personal. I think it looks pig ugly, but most other people I've shown photos to rather like it.
Yesterday I went for a listen to one, whilst also taking my own front end (CD transport and DAC) for comparison.
Initial impressions for the first 20 seconds were "this sounds just the same". That was until you realise all the extra low level detail and nuances that the Droplet was pulling off the disk. With my own CD there was a rock solid image of the singer infront of you doing her biz. With the Droplet, it was MUCH easier to tell how she was modulating her voice whilst singing, adding inflections into the music. As this was happening with every instrument, made it MUCH easier to create a believeable and enjoyable presentation.
So, looks like I've found what I'm looking for, just got to drum up the funds now. I'll keep you posted.
...LOL 