Well, I went back for the umpteenth time to my local mid-fi store with a bunch of CDs and my Ety 4p's, determined to get something small for work this time. I listened to the newish Denon D-F101 system, which is a step up from the DM-30 (at least in price, at $700). You know what? I was pretty disappointed. There were the small things, like it seemed to be a bit shy on features for the normally feature-rich Denon gear (no CD text, no mp3 CDs, etc.) There were the quirky things, like the bass/treble EQ went in steps of 2dB, not 1 like every other player I tried. And there were the less forgiveable things....like when you put the receiver on MD or AUX, play a CD, and crank the volume....you can actually clearly hear the CD! All the marketing literature about channel separation and such kinda falls flat when you fail that test. Also, you could hear audible clicking noise when you were listening to music and adjusted the volume. The worst, though, was that the headphone jack was pretty noisey. Now keep in mind, I like Denon gear, and am very happy with my 4802 receiver at home, so I *wanted* to like the denon, and based on reviews & reccos here, went in expecting it to be the best at that store. Note that a lot of the good press that the Denon mini's receive may well be due to the better speakers that come with it, but I was listening exclusively through headphones, as I am planning on using it in a headphone-only capacity (at work).
Next I listened to the Yamaha MCR-300 that was near the denon, and close to half the price ($400). Comparing side-by-side, the output jack was noticeably cleaner, in that the noise floor was imperceptable, i.e. lower than (the background level at the store - Ety 4p attenuation). Musically, the two were pretty close. My ears aren't well trained (I'm working on it, but it's not easy), but I couldn't detect a lot of obvious differences. Definitely the Denon's noisier output got on my nerves. Perhaps there was a touch more definition in the HF on the Denon, but overall the noise made it less enjoyable. Feature-wise, the Yamaha was similar, although the Yamaha had CD text (which is nice because I like to keep my originals safe, and I add CD text from CDDB/freeDB when I burn copies). Also, the Yamaha allows you to fast-forward/rewind without the remote, unlike the Denon DM-30 (which I'd played with in the past, but wasn't available to A-B at this store). The Yamaha has a nice analog volume control (whereas the Denon's volume, while a rotary knob, is actually digital), but I felt it was too sensitive...the useable range is pretty small, as it gets very loud, very quick on the headphone jack when you take it past 1/4 way up. Another little annoyance on the Yamaha was that you couldn't actually toggle between CD text and the time without the remote. I know these are little, unimportant things to most people, but if you're using this as a work system, and you're sitting 1 foot from the thing, it sure would be nice to actually have full functionality without looking for the remote buried under papers on your desk...
I next listened, for kicks, to a cool-looking but cheap Sony (the CMT-EX5). Now we've pretty much halved the cost again, at $180. It's got the new-wave styling, with a vertical CD slot where you can see the disc spinning. Kind of cool, but possibly distracting, and not good if you'd be embarrased to have your co-workers know what you're listening too (a warning for closet Britney Spears / Spice Girls / Hansen / <insert name of shudder-inducing band here> fans). Immediately I got a bad vibe, because the headphone jack is on the back of the unit, which to me implies "afterthought". But when I fired it up, I found to my surprise that it was just as silent as the Yamaha...better than the $700 Denon. I'm not sure what to make of this. I wasn't happy with the sound, though...boomy, prominent bass kind of took center-stage. I was gonna give up and move on, but noticed a tell-tale flag in the Sony's display. Apparently, it comes factory-preset with their DSG (Dynamic Sound Generation), aka "Loudness" set on. This is probably to compensate for the wimpy speakers it comes with. It took a salesman a few minutes to find a remote (you can't turn it off from the front panel...but that's okay, because once it's off, it stays off), but after that, the sound was much improved.
Honestly, though it might brand me as a heretic, or just a n00b, I found the Sony's headphone jack (note...we're still not talking about speakers here...they're definitely the worst of the lot) to be every bit as good as the Yamaha. I sat there, looking foolish to the store staff (but oblivious...I just love the Ety's!), going back and forth for upwards of an hour, listening to Massive Attack, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Shirley Bassey, etc., and found that I really couldn't tell any noticeable difference in sound quality between the Yamaha and the Sony. I went back to the Denon a couple times as well...each time it made me impressed (confused) by the cleaner, less noisy output of the cheaper systems. I do feel that aside from the noise, though, the Denon might be a little livelier and more engaging, but it was hard to tell.
Anyway....in the end I couldn't justify the extra expense of going with the one I wanted to be better (the Yamaha), when it simply didn't sound better, at least to me. The Sony has an analog out (albeit a phono jack, not RCA plugs) for upgrading with an amp, and an optical out for upgrading with a DAC and amp. I'll probably be exploring those options once I finally get off my butt and order some good closed cans for work.
The Sony has been sitting at work with me now for the last couple of days, and I haven't had any pangs of regret yet (except that I don't have enough space for the NAD L40, of course). I dunno if it will help anyone else in a similar situation, or just invalidate me as a critical listener, but that was my experience...
-Nadim
but the headphone outputs actually sounded quite decent out of my etymotics ER4Ps.
