Drawing Conclusions…

Both players were left running on repeat for around 24-hours, after which I sat down to ensure that everything was working right. Naturally, I couldn’t resist the temptation to give the comparison a quick once over, even though I should have known better. It quickly became apparent that this was no contest in musical terms. The Wadax sounded – well, like a Wadax: bold, fluid, dimensional, richly coloured and with a persuasive sense of musical shape and momentum. The D1.5 sounded thin, grey, two-dimensional, etched and bass-light. If that was as far as this exercise went, my place on the CH Christmas card list would definitely have been in danger. Fortunately, I’m familiar with just how long the Swiss electronics take to settle down and warm up, so while disappointing, the result was hardly surprising.

After another 48-hours the gap had narrowed considerably. The Wadax was largely unchanged, perhaps showing a shade more weight and as a result greater dimensionality, but this is clearly a machine that hits the ground running. The CH on the other hand, sounded like a different machine. More transparent and focussed than before, it had gained depth and separation, greater weight and body to instruments and voices and an attractive sense of pace and drive. The Wadax, with its presence and easy sense of musical structure and flow still carried the day, but now it was obvious why the D1.5 enjoys the reputation it does.

But allowing another 48-hours to pass really threw things into perspective. The D1.5 continued to grow, with even greater transparency and separation, less grain and a lower noise floor, a focussed sense of instrumental energy and superb dynamic discrimination. The sense of rhythm and forward musical moment was positively eager, with an engaging feel of pace and purpose. There was plenty of immediacy and detail, with crisply defined spaces within the soundstage. It still didn’t match the presence, dimensionality, body, colour, flow and musical shape delivered by the Wadax. Where the Studio Player was bold and emotive, dramatic and sweeping in its musical presentation, the D1.5 was quick, precise and agile, the Wadax sounding rounded and smooth in comparison.

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” Marcus Aurelius

In qualitative terms the significance lies in the fact that the D1.5’s strengths were now sufficient to point at the Wadax’s weaknesses. For all its body and the dimensionality of the Studio Player’s images, the CH points to a lack of space between instruments and a subtle smoothing of dynamic graduation. It’s almost as if the Wadax majors on the shape of and relationship between phrases and the CH operates on a more note-by-note basis.

In performance terms the result is rather different. Not only is it now entirely credible that one listener might opt for the Wadax, another for the CH, the result would depend on more than just musical preferences. The characteristics of the system and room in which the chosen player was going to find itself would be equally significant. But perhaps most significant of all would be the nature of the comparison itself. Listen after a 24-hour warm-up and you’ll get one result. Four days later, you’ll get quite another: and that’s if all of the house keeping has been taken care of. Play fast and loose with either player and you’ll seriously skew the conclusion, completely undermining its value.