What I would love is to have someone compare the Nordost, the Synergistic and the Audience. I have to say, the Audience is by far the most advanced component I've ever had. There really is nothing that made my system sound as completely "real" as this. I do not say that my system sounds like "the absolute sound," only that at the 100 hour mark, it brings one the sense of the "action" of instruments (i.e., flutes project upward, tubas "downward" (and everywhere), brass sounds like a person is playing it instead of mere notes being played. There's little point in writing to convince anyone: if you can't hear, after the 100-hour break-in, how completely it allows music to resemble the way it sounds in a concert hall, then you may just not be familiar with what real music sounds like.