A.D's Comments:

GENERAL COMMENTS:

"I consider my equipments to be very modest.  I believe a hefty price tag is not necessary for achieving great results.   Good sounds are the result of a number of factors:

     - Proper room acoustics

     - Speaker placement, obtaining the sweet spot

     - Isolation and damping materials

My speaker used to face the long side of the room.  I never expect better results could be achieved by placing them on the horizontal (long side) of the room.

In every room, there is a sweet spot.   You must take a lot of trial and errors to obtain the sweet spot where the soundstage will be the biggest.   Once you have obtained the sweet spot, the room itself will magnify the low frequency which will turn a  bookshelf speaker into a floor standing model.

The Denson DM10 is a single ended design, more like a 2 seperate Pre / Power united housed in the same unit.

The Pre amp stage has no gains and is completely passive."

FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS PLANS:

"I am currently looking for a CD Player, the Cayin CD player is actually on loan to me."

TWEAKS:

"The Ebony CD rack has a very important role in my system.   It is a rare and unusual item which has the ability to smooth out the sharpness and glare associated with digital CD players.   I suppose the Ebony wood has special isolation properties which works remarkable well as an audio platform."

Cayin CD Player CDt-17A, modified with Hovland caps.   Beautifully contructed with top quality parts inside.   Note the 2 huge toroidal transformer and aluminum enclosed CD transport.

Dual Burr Brown chips & Realcaps.  Chinese made equipments are coming on with very high quality parts.  But, during out shootout, we found the Cayin to be the least "warm" sounding of the three.   It leans towards being analytical, digital and thin sounding.

Wadio 830 CD Player, sitting on top of the "Emperor's Chair" .   The Wadia outperformed the Cayin by a huge margin in every respect.   It was more dynamic, and more musical.   The EBONY rack seem made the Tops a little more rounded, slightly more musical.

We also compared it with a Meridian 508. (Now shown in the picture).   Of the three players, The Meridian was the warmest sounding, and more musical.  But it lacked dynamics and textures.     Despite being a very old player, it outperformed the Cayin by a pretty good marign.

The solid ebony "handles" can be turn outward.....

Or they can be turned inwards, each configuration produce a different sound, believe it or not.

Not very visible in the photo, but the speakers are tied

down with Monofilament lines.

Speaker stand sits on top of a wood platform, and is further tied down, as steady as a concrete pole.