The three things that stand out in my mind here are the stand issue, which has been fully discussed, the assumption that the sonics can be traced primarily to DD vs. BD, and the fact that aside from the Monaco's many obvious strengths, one way its problems showed up was in a lack of dimensioality, in other words, a lack of resolution. This is not an issue of altering the flavor through tweeking; it is a lack of information. IMHO, VTA, loading, etc. should not change this once optimized in a truly reference system. The only issue that makes sense to me aside from that of the stand is perhaps the way an arm and table handle resonances and how they interact around that.
I throw my vote in with those that think Michael has done an unusually good and honest job of ferreting out the deal here. We can only aspire in such situations though. This is planet earth after all and there are many logistics that will forever remove us from situational perfection.
I throw my vote in with those that think Michael has done an unusually good and honest job of ferreting out the deal here. We can only aspire in such situations though. This is planet earth after all and there are many logistics that will forever remove us from situational perfection.