Bottom line, there is no way I’m going to restrict my audio purchases to gear that I can audition at home. I just bought a Jay’s Audio CDT3 Mk III transport that was shipped from China. There is simply nothing else on the market like this transport and I was willing to believe the reviews and take a chance. I totally love this thing. If I restricted myself only to gear that I could audition I would have missed out on this incredible component and many of the best components in my system.
"The best transport" is an ongoing thread-theme, here, and there are a handful of other highly-regarded transports that are mentioned repeatedly.
In fact, I bought one of them, the Pro-Ject CD Box RS2 from TMR and ended up returning it due to the ergonomics. At that point, the best alternative unit fitting my budget was not available for purchase with a return policy and in a rare exception, I opted to break my own self-imposed rule.
This nearly turned into a disaster as the unit was quite forward sounding in my system. Fortunately, I was eventually able to tame the sibilance and fatiguing highs via cable and footer swaps. BTW, my speakers, DAC and integrated are all on the the warm side of neutral and none of the various reviews I’d read mentioned the forward quality of the unit in question. I only came across references to this "after the fact", courtesy of a forum member who happens to be a dealer.
You must naturally follow whichever path works best for you but in my case, the experience I’ve described underscored two things; 1) buying gear I can demo at home and return if necessary is the best way to go and 2) reviews cannot be wholly relied upon.
