Art Dudley compares CD Players


In the current issue of Stereophile, Art Dudley compares the Metronome Kalistra DreamPlay One CDP, a 2 part unit that weighs 85 pound and, costs $43,000, to his standard , which is a  Sony SCD-777 SACD/CD player that is 17 years old.  His not so surprising conclusion is that  the newer and Uber expensive player sounds better playing redbook CD.
  Apparently Dudley is unaware that 17 years is an eternity in Digital Audio, that a good share of people who own CDPs are likely to be using them as transports into moderately priced but high performing DACs, and finally thatmost digital replay now consists of file based content from either PCs or purpose built renders.  Perhaps comparing a $43,000 CDP to a modern CDP, transport-DAC combination, or Music Server might of have been of more use to the majority of readers.
  Don’t these magazines have Editors?  Or if John Atkinson to busy tying himself up in knots trying to explain why MQA is necessary for us all, when his own magazine reports a trial from McGill (see Jim Austin ‘s column on p.13) that MQA failed to be perceived as an improvement in blind listening tests.
mahler123
Glad I am not alone!!! I follow AD writings since his Listener days and this is the first time that he made me cringe. I think he warned us from the start: "As I write this <<the 3rd sentence for the article>>, my copy deadline is three days away,..."
To be fair, at the end he did compare Kalista to his memory of Naim Audio CD555... Wish I had such skills, these last few months I torture myself trying to choose between CD555's little brother, CDS3, and Wadia 781i, and its tough! To do this from the memory? Wow!!!
I would have asked to compare the $43K gizmo to a Marantz SACD SA-10... playing CDs.When and IF Stereophile or TAS ever do a review of the Marantz SA-10, the have got to also use it to play CDs.. They will be amazed. IMO of course.    
I own a Sony SCD777ES, not anywhere in same league. I retired mine. It sits in the rack only as a museum piece on the bottom shelf gathering dust..
Reading Art Dudley reviews of cd players is a total waste of time. He’ll give a cd player a great review and then in the next issue he’ll write in his column about how lousy cds sound. 

I guess the people at Stereophile think that we can’t remember what they say from month to month.