June 2007
Audiolics Anonymous Chapter 92: Esoterics
Review By Bill Gaw
W
elcome to our June meeting for those suffering from Audiophilia Nervosa, defined as the intense need to
continually improve upon our systems no matter what anybody else says. While not a psychiatrically approved
diagnosis, it is a form of obsessive-compulsive behavior that could be treated with multiple medications, but
what's the fun in that. I'd rather spend my money on improvements to my system.
On the other hand, about a year ago, my system was sounding so good that I felt at the time that further
improvement was unwarranted, that I could be happy with it forever, and if I had not been a reviewer would
possibly have been cured of my incessant tweaking behavior. Unhappily for my bank account, this was not to
be, as you can perceive from my past few columns. Since then, there have been marked improvements in
control of electrical gremlins, speaker cables, interconnects, digital storage, etc., which proved to me that audio
reproduction is still not perfect and improvements are still being made. This is made clearer every time I attend
a live unamplified classical concert. While my system comes close, especially with DVD-Audio or SACD
surround, one can still perceive, even in the next room, the difference between live and recorded, even with the
best discs.
Having said that, my system has had three significant equipment improvements in the past three months, two of
which will be reported on today, and one next month. Each is considered to be close to the state of the art, and
all have demonstrated that no matter how good your system sounds, there will probably always be something
that can be improved upon.
Teac Esoteric SA-60 Audio Disc Player
While the above review is probably of little
value to most of you, this section should
be of interest to the vast majority who are
into digital audio. I've been very content
with my 3-plus year old Parts Connexxion
modified Denon 5900 universal player but
felt that it may be time to update as digital
has advanced significantly in the past few
years. Sony may have thought that there
was "perfect sound forever" back in the early 80's, but its only been in the past couple of years, 25 years after
digital arrived, that it may have caught up to analog. Have been waiting for a decent High Definition Universal
DVD player with the ability to decode Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master which is supposedly better than DVD-
Audio and SACD, but nobody has come out with one yet that can do it. Like with previous generations of audio-
video products, audio is being treated as the stepchild. HD DVD and Blu-ray players have advanced the video
side to its highest standard of 1080P output while none of the players can even decode the mid-level Dolby and
DTS streams, never mind their best iterations, and until recently couldn't even transmit it to an external decoder,
of which there still aren't any anyways. Plus the only so-called universal player on the market that will do both
video systems, from LG electronics, not only can't do the high def audio, but also can't do some of the special
video stuff of HD DVD that less expensive players can. Plus none of them can do DVD-Audio or SACD
reproduction, so all are a complete waste of time for audiophiles.
While there are many universal players out there that can do several audio standards with very good audio
quality, at least until now, all of them do not seem to be able to reproduce any of the types quite as well as
single standard top of the line players that have been tweaked for that particular type of disc. I and probably
most of you don't want to have separate CD, DVD, DVD-Audio, SACD, HD DVD and Blu-ray players filling our
racks. The best, such as those from Meridian, Linn, Sony, etc., can do one superbly, and possibly two or three
standards very well, but either fall flat with another or not do them at all. Also, after 25 years of Redbook CD, it
