Thank you. That’s a very kind offer. Alas I’m in the north west.
@Innocent_Bystander I think you make a valid point about the different voicings of CD, TV and DVD. I think there’s a possibility I posted in haste this morning having been lulled into an apparently sensible suggestion, which possibly wasn’t.
Listening to the TV tonight I would say it’s not as good as it has been but no-one in the family commented until I asked the question and I suspect that had the CDP output not been so poor I may not have expressed any great concern about it. It’s great having the TV sound through the pre but it’s not and never will be a sonic priority.
Using the DVD to compare music was a fools errand really. There can never be any meaningful comparison between a CDX2/XPS2 and a Toshiba DVD player costing 20x less; with an entirely different character on music and piped through a Sky+ to the pre (so you need the TV on to get any sound and thus can’t even be judged in isolation). Until today I must have listened to maybe 2 CDs through the DVD in 17 or so years so there’s really nothing meaningful to be said about the DVD player. It sounded like it was warmer and had mids but actually it could just be tuned to accentuate the mid range to give sound body. A diversion I think.
On balance I think it best to stick to the original plan. Remove HL; take to Audio-T; loan lavender DIN to DIN and see what happens at my end and at theirs if they have a HL to connect to.
Once we’ve ruled that out then focus on the suggestion to remove the AV from the system and see what happens.
After that, review.
In the meantime I’ve entertained myself with the rantings of @anon32455950 who would apparently like to make a point to me but wouldn’t wish to cause offence.
I note that on this thread they first suggested that I test my power supply; then suggested it was the Burndy. That was followed by the suggestion to reset the 202; a very adamant suggestion that it was “amp, amp, amp”. Magnificently they have now moved onto speakers.
Is there an element of the system you think or definitely isn’t or are you going to work through those as well?
Finally, a small observation for those posters who persist with variations on the tone of FFS do something/help yourself. One can only hope you never work with mental ill-health. There’s nothing going on here but mild depression and even then only specifically in relation to the kit.
I think I calculated that all in I’ve spent £14k if you count cables; stands; mains distribution and so on plus about £3k on repairs/recaps etc. I also reckon that such issues have occupied around 2 years of my 17 years of ownership. That doesn’t feel especially normal to me.