The "oh dear" was because I thought it would be easy, I really did. For starters, I tried to make it easy for the CD player by giving it the Chorus, and letting the DACMagic have the Cobras. And when I played the first track (Damien Rice's Cannonball - thought I'd keep it simple), I thought the decision was made there and then - the Airport Express and DACMagic sounded so much warmer and musical that I thought the Primare had fallen at the first hurdle.
However, just to check again my previous assertion that the DAC in the Primare sounded exactly the same as the DM, a quick fiddle with digital inputs and I had the AE and CD both playing through the DM, and the warmth of the lossless files still beat the Primare hands down. And then I remembered - iTunes EQ......
So having turned off the gentle bass boost in iTunes, I started again...
Right, now we're talking - a change of tracks to Tori Amos' Me And A Gun, and A/B comparisons done by flicking channels on the amp - here the Primare seems to nose ahead, with the DM exhibiting a bit of bloom - maybe a thin veil on the treble, so the CD player sounds a bit clearer. I'd read that filters on the DM might help with simple music, so I tried the 'Steep' filter, and the DM pulled back - in fact they were almost indistinguishable. Almost, but not quite - round one to the Primare I'd say.
So then I put on one of my favourite tracks of the moment - Under My Skin by Peter Bradley Adams. Fairly simple acoustic and voice arrangement, but still more depth to it than the Tori Amos track, and it's here where the DM shone - the acoustic guitars sound wonderfully realistic, and that warmth I mentioned earlier has no detriment whatsoever - all the detail is there, but the midrange has become fuller, warmer and more pleasing, more musical - bass has better timing and leading edge attack - suppose it sounds more like proper instruments than a facsimile of one, which the Primare was tending to do at the very bottom end.
It was at this point that I gave the DM all the ammo - plugged into the Chorus, the Adams track has gained a little more detail (listening now) but still has lovely warmth and depth - it's just making great music, probably the best I've heard my system sound for a long time...
So there's a taster - DM currently ahead by a nose. Am off to find something more complex and see how they fare....