There isn't a huge difference between class units. And nowadays, there's a lot of blatant nonsense surrounding high-end home audio, like little stickers you can put on your speakers or "treatments" for CDs to give them a better class of bits and bytes - homoeopathy for the audiophile.
However, nobody is going to pretend that a pocket tranny is going to sound as good as a Linn system, for example. The big question is, is the difference between the 310, the 510 and the 510 with Dynaudio in the "pocket tranny vs. Linn" bracket, or in the pink stickers for your speakers bracket. I suspect its somewhere in between actually - that there is a difference, but it may not be as enormous as we like to think.
Listening tests are very subjective, particularly if you can't switch instantly from one version to the other, and they're enormously affected by volume - we're all inclined to rate the louder sound as better irrespective of anything else.
I'm not disappointed by the 310, but I'd like a listen to the Dynaudio some day.
Rolfe.
