No, I don't think you are deaf. Although I haven't heard the other electronics in your system, they seem capable of revealing any differences if any. Now of course there is still the issue of the room. But I'm not suprised if they all sound pretty similar. I've been listening to these high-end toys for nine years now and I don't know what alot of people talk about. We'll I used too, but now it all sounds like crap except for my Van Alstine/Biro system which sounds, in my book, quite decent and worth the money. I wasn't even the least impressed with the Wilson X-1's when I heard them a year and a half ago. You might just want to try a marantz CD-67 and save some money. Now of course I know I haven't heard even a sizeable fraction of all the stuff out there, so maybe I just hit all the wrong ones the whole way here. Who knows?
Am I deaf?
I've got three CD outfits here on loan from my dealer. A Linn Ikemi, a Bel Canto DAC 1 running off a Pioneer 525 DVD player and a Classe CDP. They all sound almost EXACTLY the same. After hours of switching cables, power cords and anything else I could think of, I did form a slight preference. And that was for the Pioneer DVD running straight into my amp! This freaked me out so much that I subjected my wife to the same test. She also preferred the DVD player. What in the hell is going here? Associated Equipment: Classe CAP 100 integrated amp, Sennheiser HD600 headphones, Von Schewikert VR3 speakers, Cardas and Kimber cables.