Whether designing, building, modifying or just buying, we all need models that help us decide what to do. You can say 'just listen', but how do you listen to everything, or worse still as a designer, build everything. I can see in Sean's posts what some of his models are, and they are different from some other designers. If as a buyer your model is 'I only listen to digital sources that have discrete outputs' then you won't bother listening to the Transporter. We all need to sift somehow.
What we should be careful about however is getting stuck in our prevailing models. If enough people I trust say the Transporter sounds good, then I will happily discard my prejudices against AKM and NE5534s and have a listen. (That's just a hypothetical example by the way). Real scientists get excited when an opportunity to disprove their models arises, don't they? Sean has a model that believes clock sync cables don't matter - it doesn't make him right, but it has plenty of validity and support. But equally if enough credible people say they hear a difference, then perhaps its worth giving it a try. We can't advance human knowledge without having those models (no group of monkeys has ever actually typed even a paragraph of War & Peace), but we can't advance human knowledge insisting our models are inviolate either (eg. must have Black Gates, no coupling caps or ICs). So I am still a bit of a sceptic myself about whether to buy a Transporter, but saying it can't sound good because it uses cheap ICs doesn't help me any. Hearing credible reports on its sound quality does - keep em coming. If you can indicate what you compared it to that would be even better. I hear the phrases - can get into the music more - and say to myself 'now you are talking'. -- Jenks ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jenks's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3413 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=27927 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
