About what one can hear and relevance of measurements (XMOS+Crystals and PS)

@Nice Monkey the question is always one of audibility, can one actually hear an improvement?
To determine this you must make controlled comparisons, if you can reliably pick a difference unsighted 9/10 then you may be onto something.
Having said that the A-6 is already audibly transparent so if the ‘special edition’ sounded different ( it doesn’t) then it would mean that the femto clock of the SE is actually adding audible distortion ( it doesn’t) concentrate instead on aspects of reproduction which actually can make a tangible improvement.
Loudspeakers and their interaction with the room.
Keith

 

Integrated the "XMOS need to know" to the main post now that Alan Partridge has withdrawn his extensive testing proving that updating just the crystal without using an intermediate processor makes no SQ difference. Don't blame Alan in any way as it isn't all that simple. Remember this applies also to HDMI feeds to AMP's/DAC's which is hardly known and never mentioned in specifications or descriptions.

 

Alan Partridge?
Keith

 

To compare you need to DAE the CD and playback synchronized on the CD-Player and on the Music Player of Eversolo.
If you use the SPDIF you just compare the DAC chip but not the Crystals of both units as both run on the same clock source of the CD-Player. The Eversolo gets inferior input as that clock is deteriorated by using the SPDIF link. I hope it is not Toslink as that is known to be very bad on jitter.

So your conclusion that the CD-Player even sounds better is absolutely to be expected where using SPDIF for External DAC input on the Eversolo. Being standard or master edition A6 or A8 will make no difference at all as those superior crystals are not used with that setup!

Just re-read the main topic to understand the how and why.