Osvaldo, as was said, you made an excellent choice in getting the 2600; that being said however, the differences you described simply couldn't exist if all the settings(particularly the precise volume level)were the same. Your sincerity isn't being questioned, so please don't be upset, but our ears can frequently fool us regardless of how experienced we are with sound and music. Only a carefully controlled blind listening test can adequately examine these questions. Dr. Toole has stated in an AES meeting where he discussed the essential requirement that listening be conducted blind that "If we can see what we're listening to, we can't hear it".
The classic example of a blind listening test demonstrating this is found in the
Stereo Review test , in which among other results the $12,000 pair of tube amplifiers was indistinguishable from the $220 Pioneer receiver. Note especially the contrast between the open listening before the blind sessions, where the participants describe in somewhat flowery language the differences they're hearing, with the results failing to show such differences when the nameplates and pricetags were concealed.
