I wouldn’t do this with a CDP-101 because they sounded so bad, but I would accept an audiophile “challenge” to compare an LP directly with a CD. This had to be done very carefully. I would pick the CD and LP. Obviously, they had to originate from the same recording session, and I had to use a high end turntable (properly set up, flat LP, hole in center, low wear stylus, low wear LP). For the audiophile this was going to be a piece of cake demo and their champion would win easily. I’d synchronize the start of both, then start an ‘A’, ‘B’, ... ‘B’ sequence. Out in the middle of it all, I’d get them mixed up and the LP would give itself away with a ‘tic’. The audiophile would stomp out at that point, mad, claiming some sort of trickery on my part. Perhaps so, but they were missing the point that at the high end of things, there is not much difference.

Later, when digital audio started becoming the rage, I had a little task for the listener. There were two different MP3 resolutions and a FLAC rendering of the same CD track. I asked the listener to rank them in order of preference. Regular folk got the correct ranking 80+%, self declared “audiophiles” were closer to 50% and I had to hold my giggles. The audiophile gave all sorts of excuses — low quality amp or speakers, the room, and on and on. The real problem was that their reputation was on the line and they were too tense to pay attention. At one point I presented this demo to a computer club. I was using a SONOS CONNECT:AMP and their speakers in a dreadful Community Center meeting room. Everything was simply thrown on a table. The audience was a haphazard collection of middle age and up nerds. Everyone got the ranking correct.