Please please....re read my post I was part agreeing with you.

 Your "listen with your eyes" comment is really rather funny, as i was saying roughly the same thing to the cable sceptics ! I never give items house room that I have not invested a great deal of time and energy to listening to, or getting advice from people who have similar tastes.  As stated in my post those are players that I like, not what i thought you would like. I would not presume to tell you or anyone else  what you should listen to, that has to be your choice. 

So we agree on the Nos ...I think we actually agree on far more.  Having listen to the Nos with it owner , in my system we both agreed the Quad to be the better dac...In our opinion.  Thats not saying it bad, just it very good at its price point. I can think of the MF X-dac as an example of how things have moved on .The X-dac must have been about £250 new, and even sh is fetching £100, which is totally outclassed by the Nos at half the new price, and now comparable to the sh price.  I should know I have one of these as well.

But I agree there are many older items that sound better than the new ones. Though there are many items that are new that range from good to horrible, so its a bit of a false argument. 

There are a great many bits of kit that now cost far less and out perform more expensive gear.  T-amps  as stated else where will give a great many amps upto 1k a real hard time. 

I think I'd rather choose a new system from todays gear than from gear ten to twenty years ago, both on pricing and percived sound quality.