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I have to say, that I could not agree with you in 100%, but it?s just my opinion, which could be wrong.
dCS's new Scarlatti stack— Scarlatti STT CD/SACD transport ($32,999), Scarlatti SDC DAC ($23,999), and Scarlatti SCK Master Clock ($10,999)— impressed me not just with what it managed to extract from discs, but with its simplified control interface, which is the one aspect of dCS gear that always frustrated me in the past.
Then there was all the VTL gear: TL6.5 preamp ($9500), TP6.5 phono preamp ($8500),and Siegfried 400 stereo power amplifier ($25,000). That's one, smooth, powerful system—and it drove the Fremonts to lock onto the huge room like nobody's business.
VTL's interface isn't too shabby, either. Thinking he heard a phase anomaly in Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris' "This is Us," Jeff Wong asked Luke Manley, photographed here by Larry Greenhill, if he was sure the connection chain was correct. "Yes, I'm sure it is," Luke said, "but we can find out if the disc is phase-correct." He touched a button on the TL6.5's remote and we all relaxed. That was the sound we were looking for.
"I'd like to take credit for all of this," Luke said, "but this is a huge room and we were having trouble getting the level of detail we are accustomed to—but the Nordost Valhalla interconnect and speaker cables helped, and the Shunyata power conditioner helped a lot."