Quote Originally Posted by Gerard
Hi Emaidel,
I have 2 albums, Sultans of Swing - Dire Straits & Babes in the wood - Mary Black, both in LP & CD. My CD player - Consonance CD120 Linear. Vinyl playback by Planar 3/new motor/Michell Techno Weight. Shure V15vx into modified Black Cube. A little bit about the CD120L, dislikes complex material, shines with sparse recordings, so I'll compare both with slower Mary Black's tracks and slower Dire Straits tracks. The Rega has the ability to extract more details, is fluid, more musical and natural. The CD120L, while a good performer, is a tad shy compared to the Rega. Simply put, the Rega has Mary Black polished and professional, whereas the CD120L has Mary Black in a practice session in a casual mood. Likewise for Dire Straits. The CD120L does have a heavier bottom end, but just loses out in clarity.
In another thread, TT's were mentioned to irritate with pops and crackles. I, too, faced this problem. And found that it is not always the LP causing it. Rather a lack of arm grounding ( Rega does not provide ). I installed the arm ground wire and now, all my good LP's are dead silent.
Hope this has given you food for thought.
Regards,
Gerard
A useful and fair comparison, though you seem to be a bit more critical of your CD player than most reviewers were. And how it compares to the Marantz SA-8001 is anyone's guess too.