What makes one CD player perform better then the other?

[E-Stat]

And your experience amounts to what? How does it establish scientific fact or validate claims made?

I'm not a labcoat and couldn't care less what is statistically proven. Nor does anyone else who buys any number of expensive consumer goods that defy simplistic measurements. Do you remember our conversation about tires? Remember your thinking that the UTQG rating actually meant something? Do the engineers at Ferrari and Honda (or for that matter, their customeres) really care that the Bridgestone S-02 tires they specify on their products "rate" no better than ones costing a fourth as much?

Or do you think that having a piano in your living room qualifies?

That is merely a piece of the puzzle. One does develop a musical memory of how live unamplified music should sound. My garage Advent-Threshold-Pioneer system never sounds like my wife playing the piano. The downstairs system, on the other hand, does to these ears. What does qualify is extended exposure to a wide range of high performance components. I have experienced what is possible. And my new $70 Toshiba 3960 is not even in the same ballpark as my GamuT. If you limit your driving experience to a Saturn, you will have absolutely no perspective as to what high performance cars can do. Pick up a Car & Driver sometime and read one of their full reviews. You will find some simplistic and largely useless performance metrics. Which are wholely inadequate by themselves. Far more importantly, you will read "opinions" on how the vehicle feels under various conditions. They do not share your insecurity in the ability to characterize the driving characteristics of that which they test.

rw