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Esoteric DV-50S
VPI Jr.
Wavelength Audio Brick
Pathos Classic One
Dynaudio Special 25
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Louis and I have never met. How do we from Western Canada come across an audiophile in the Eastern Canada? We thank Rick, and his Stereopal.com. Louis has been a customer of ours for a while, and I recently learned that he is also a member of Stereopal.com. With Louis and Rick's permission, I am happy to introduce Louis's audio system, and his musical library.
Louis has an impressive music collection of over 3000 CD titles and 800 LPs. What interests me the most is that Louis stored his entire digital music collection into his computer hard drive. The music server is controlled by an Apple iMac, with the USB port connected to a Wavelength Audio Brick DAC. With few simple keystrokes, Louis can find specific songs or titles in less than a few seconds.
Louis and I both agree that music server is the way to go, unfortunately, it is not widely accepted and appreciated by audiophiles. Now, could anybody tell the difference between the Wavelength tube USB DAC and a top end CD player (except for the very high end). We don't know, but Sam Tellig from Stereophile cannot tell the defference when compared to a Linn Unidisk.
In our honest opinion (it may sound strange from a CD dealer), the CD playback and output via SPDIF was a inferior design. In the last couple years, we have many-many customers going back to analog, while many others find themselves with greater enjoyment in better formats such as XRCD, HDCD, SACD, and DVDA. Having seen audiophiles spend so much money on an audiophile CD transport alone (including myself), I would say that Louis is definitely on the right track.
Of all Louis's 3000 CD collections, he has picked about 350 titles (he refers as Essential Audiophile Recordings - EAR) as he likes to share with all audiophiles. They all demonstrate both exceptional performance and outstanding sound quality. If you are interested in receiving a copy (Excel file), please contact us.
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