I have now reconfigured the layout of my system so I can use a better interconnect, and have allowed the Shek to burn in a bit more (i.e. left it playing while I went on holiday!)
It's interesting that the differences are more readily apparent but the sources are closer in 'absolute performance'. The Shek is better than my Shanling at presenting a believable acoustic, but the Shanling is better at presenting the scale of a performance. The Shek has a number of irritations - low output (i.e. increased noise from my valve amp), significant loss of quality if I use the SB3 volume to any real extent, unlistenable when a recording hits digital clipping. However, when I consider the convenience of the SB3 over CDs, these are easily offset. So it's become a matter of 'horses for courses', sonically. The SB3/Shek is good enough to become my main source (I'm listening to it now). Since I enjoy using the SB so much - so much easier to find cool and unexpected music in my collection - I suspect that it will become so, but time will tell. But anyway, the Shek makes my SB3 sound good. I think the stock SB3 is a good gadget, but it only became audiophile for me with the addition of the Shek. At £400 for the combo, it's a far better bargain than the £210 for the SB3. Oh and Tomsi, I should have been clearer on the 'phono' issue. In terms of audio boobs, it would have been a good one! Reminds me of when I bought the Shanling: the dealer started it up and said, with a big smile on his face, "how about that then?"; I said it sounded like he'd lost his left tweeter (the joys of biwire cables), which wiped the smile off his face - how could he not hear that? Oh well. Adam -- adamslim SB3 into Derek Shek d2, Shanling CDT-100, Rotel RT-990BX, Esoteric Audio Research 859, Living Voice Auditorium IIs, Nordost cables ------------------------------------------------------------------------ adamslim's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7355 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=30034 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
