Arcam, Musical Fidelity questions...

The FMJ CD23 uses completely different DACs and design than the FMJ CD33 and FMJ CD36. So using a 23 to compare the 33 or 36 to anything else is not going to be helpful. The 23 uses the ring DAC designed by dCS. Some people think it sounds better than the wolfson DACS used in the 33 and 36. I have listened to both the 33 and 23, and I liked the 23 better, but i still didn't prefer it to the Meridian G08 I also auditioned, but this is another price range. I found the 33 lacked the ability to provide cohesiveness to the musical elements in recordings. The 23 had a problem with timing, which I noticed while auditoning it with one album I listen to a lot.

Trestles, I don't know if they still have it, or if you are interested, but the Arcam FMJ CD23 I tested (not a 23T) was a demo model they were selling at Accent on Music in Mount Kisco, New York. I felt bad not buying it after the taking it home to demo it.

I A/B tested it at home vs. my Denon DVD-5910 and found my 5910 was much better sounding (probably because of the new Burr-Brown 1792 chips -- seems anything with these chips is much better than previous generation chips on the market in the same price ranges, the Ayre C-5xe is another example which also uses 1792s -- for instance all the items that have the chip seem to be getting A ratings or top ratings in whatever class they are in, which to me seems a sure sign that the chip itself has more to do with it than any individual engineering done by a company using the chip). If you are willing to spend 1k more after finding a 12% discount you can have the Denon 5910 which will play everything including CD, and I find the CD on it worlds better than the Arcam 23... That's just my 2 cents worth.