A fellow GA popped over last night to listen for a while and I tried him on a blind A/B comparison of Arcam Alpha 5 CD against MacBook with Audiophilleo, Audirvana, etc.
By judiciously pressing 'play' on both CD and MacBook I was able to conceal which was A and which B, and flip between them at his request.
My pal expressed a preference for B on all but one track, a Police remaster which was fairly crap and compressed despite the remaster. With Michelle Pfeiffer, William Shatner and Jazz At The Pawnshop spinning, B won for him.
And, for me, B won every time because I knew what to listen for; he's not that familiar with my system.
Of course, B being the MacBook, which was a really pleasing outcome!! Honestly, after all that tweaking I want the MacBook solution to be better, but even if it were 'as good as CD' I should be happy, because a basic CA solution often sounds so much worse.
Next step will be to compare against a pukka digital transport like one from Audio Note, if I can line one up.
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