Not as musical? Hmmm. It's difficult to see how filtering out audible frequencies can be considered more musical. Unless perhaps Robm321 is not employing decent or better line conditioners and/or perhaps has issues with ics and speaker cables.
Shortly after receiving my SCD-1 about 3 and 1/2 years ago, I experimented with the different settings. And perhaps once or twice since then.
In every case I've enjoyed the standard setting more than any of the cutoff filter settings.
The standard setting is a sharp rolloff filter. The other 4 filters are not. I prefer the filters 1 through 4. I find that the different filters suit different types of music. To my ears the number 1 filter is the most like the standard filter without the sharp rolloff. Just my opinion. I am sure every person will hear something different. I just like having the choices.
Before getting my Levinson 360S, I would use filter 2 for modern jazz and filter 3 for some big band music. As the previous responders wrote, there is no such thing as "no filter" so there is no purist reason to pick any one filter over any other.
In my experience, the differences between the filters is not huge, so you have to listen fairly carefully.After some experimentation, I found that I prefer the standard setting. I don't always use the SCD-1 for redbook playback, but it was interesting to compare and contrast the output via the different filters with the output of my redbook reference, the Simaudio Moon Eclipse.
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