2. No amount of coloration of the midrange can recreate soundstage, separation, detail, articulation, and timbre correctness and etc.
That's true. Soundstage is a function of recording technique and a speaker system's ability to disperse upper mids and trebles. It is only related to electronic components to the degree that they are able to accurately represent the panning, dynamics and detail created in the recording. When we hear a vastly improved soundstage from an electronic component...you know what? I'm not sure what we're hearing. A higher level of accuracy, better channel separation? Or an illusion, perhaps, because sometimes, on some recordings, crossfeed can appear to open up the soundstage when the opposite should be true. And plenty of people hear a bigger soundstage on vinyl, which technically makes no sense at all (the superior channel separation, dynamics and low background noise of digital should all help create a much better illusion of soundstage).
Separation, detail, articulation...unless you're talking about
channel separation, those are three different adjectives for the same thing. Timbre correctness? I dunno what that is. We're talking about an electronic component not a violin. It's sending an analog signal to your amp that is a relatively accurate reflection of the analog audio that was recorded, converted to digital information then converted back to analog by your PS1. Period. Unless we
are talking about coloration, the only real issue is the component's degree of accuracy; everything else is more adjectives.
Of course none of that means squat. All that matters is how it sounds. I think it's exceedingly cool that an old PS1 sounds great, and I'm not surprised. I think my ultra-cheap Toshiba dvd sounds good, and I suspect that most of the audiophile-grade goodies that drive up the price of pricey CDPs and DACs make tiny, incremental improvements in the noise floor and resolution, but that the "quality" we hear is in the tone of the output stage. Or some stage. But it's color. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Which brings me to the last part...
Why is it obvious that $3k CDP must have a separate path for digital/analog, sophisticated power supply, super accurate crystal clock and other esoteric stuff?
It's not. It's only obvious that various combinations of that esoteric stuff are what the manufacturers, sellers and users of these products tell us sets them apart from the average consumer stuff. It is also obvious, to me anyway, that when a PS1 or a cheap Toshiba DVD player, or an Oppo with measurably horrible jitter numbers, sounds really good to a lot of the same people who have owned and loved high-end CDPs and DACs with various combinations of that esoteric stuff, that the bulk of the
sound either is not in that stuff...or we're suffering from mass hypnosis.
And it is probably a bit of both.
I know many will disagree. That's ok. It gives us something to talk about.
Tim