DATE: SEP 1998

Hi Steve,

I got to go to my Friends house tonight and mix and match components. We listened to his system first. It has a moderate CD player, a Cyrus solid state amp, and small reflex speakers. They are 87dB efficient. I enjoyed the sound of his system. We substituted his amp first.

The Zen was put into service immediately and sounded less than wonderful in comparison. However, after We played a few more tracks, it started to warm up, and what a difference. Then the real listening started.

It consistently sounded better on all the tracks We played. We then substituted the Arcam Alpha 7 for his CD player, and it was also a noticable improvement. We restored his original system and it sounded very 2 dimensional in comparison.

When we swapped between his CD and the Arcam, while using his amp, there was only a very slight difference. So, for us non Audiophiles, the best way we could put it is the Zen and Arcam had very noticable "presence" that the existing setup lacked. I didn't even bother to substitute the speakers I built form the drivers you sent, the difference using his speakers was so huge.

Neil Sutton.