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Yes we could. And it would be complete waste of time. Each player will have no effect on the output of the DAC. There may be some low level jitter differences, but nothing remotely audible despite the hoopla at times in the hifi press. FR and all of that will be unchanged by which transport is used. I've done this before with a handful of transports and trust me don't bother. It does not make sense it would matter if you know how this works, and in practice it also does not matter. If you are spinning discs, use the transport that you can afford, with features you want and don't worry about it.
If you are listening directly to the player then there can be FR differences which might account for slight sound differences. They usually are not largely different.
I'm curious about something Blumlein 88:
I've mentioned before that in the 90's I did some blind testing between 2 CD players and a DAC - A Sony CDP, Meridian CDP and a Museatex Bidat DAC (with it's own volume control). I was able to level match at the speaker terminals using a voltmeter for the blind test. I found it very easy to identify which I was listening to, especially the Meridian and Museatx DAC. (The DAC sounded slightly darker, more lush, seemingly a bit deeper bass, slightly more diffuse and larger image, vs the tighter focused imaging of the Meridian, and the Meridian's slightly more upper mid/lower treble forwardness and texture).
If we take the results as valid, for sake of argument, any speculation as to where in the design sonic differences could occur? Analog stages? Digital filters?