Any good cdp with digital inputs

Why not get a reliable inexpensive transport and a reclocking DAC with multiple inputs. I'm thinking something like a basic Marantz CD5001 player with a Lavry DAC.

Hmm, how much is that Lavry?...plus the separate player/transport, plus another digital interconnect, plus another power cord, plus another shelf space taken up, plus another outlet taken up on the power conditioner...And all that just at the same time many audiophiles are adding various new boxes in the form of digital recorders/ADCs/servers/wireless hubs...I think a bit of consolidation begins to make sense for a lot of audiophiles.

If one box can handle all the silver disk formats for playback and serve as the audiophile DAC of the bunch for multiple sampling rates, that seems helpful. What increasingly doesn't make a lot of sense anymore is to have a separate box serving solely as a Red Book transport or player when you have these other sources you'd like to incorporate, in many cases with upgraded external analog conversion if possible. Since most audiophiles still have reasons for not going with preamps that are also DACs (and therefore there aren't and won't be too many of those on the market), and most traditional high end digital firms seem to be slow to move in the direction of the emerging music-server/network-enabled paradigm, the audiophile disk player seems the most logical and also easiest candidate to expand its duties within the traditional high end system context.

Several high end firms have already gone this route with their CDPs (while many still haven't), and many more have come out with so-called universal players that are capabable of handling multiple sampling rates yet still lack input facilities, but more audiophile companies need to integrate those two approaches, with the option of omitting video and multi-channel capabilities to keep it all relatively afforable and focused on the traditional high end 2-channel system and software, which it's clear ain't going away anytime soon.

I have a Quad CDP-2 which I have owned for about a year. When I went to Squeezebox a few months ago, I figured I would sell the Quad and put it up on Agon. Had it sold and then it fell through and I withdrew the ad and rethought my options. I then started using the Quad as a DAC and realized several sonic benefits, including a more 'rounded' sound, greater depth and a reduction of the slight digital glare that remained in the system. So there it sits right now, but I would look at it and wonder if I should sell it and get a standalone DAC with that money, as the transport is barely ever used.

But- a few days ago, my wireless router died, so I had no SB3 tunes to play until I bought a new one. Fired up the transport on the Quad and was rockin' again. So maybe it's not so useless after all!

Sonically, the Quad is quite the bargain. In my memory, it is on par with the CEC TL51-Z I owned a few years ago (which was ergonomically annoying, what with the slider, clamp and all), and eclipses all other players I have tried, including the famed but flawed Jolida JD100 (yes, with blackplate 5751s, etc). (Note that I have not tried the big-buck machines though; I cannot justify paying that much for a technology that seems to still be in an evolutionary stage).

Finally, I can experiment with either integrateds or power amps, due to the variable output option. Which, btw, is not bad at all - I haven't done a very strict A-B but I haven't felt any obvious deterioration of sound when using the variable outs (at any level) vs fixed outputs. (The Quad has a set of each).

Sounds like an ad, doesn't it? Well, she's not for sale, for now at least. For my modest investment I got four darn good units - transport (it even has digital out), DAC, integrated CDP, and digital preamp, all with a very good remote control. When I bought this new from the dealer he told me that if Quad had used a full-sized case and a fancier faceplate, it could easily be marketed at $3K. Although I shrugged this off as salesmanship at the time, I now understand and agree.

My unit has been trouble-free, btw. It is an original CDP-2 and not an upgrade to '2' status, which I understand has had its share of problems.

Cambridge Audio's 840C has two sets of digital inputs, with Anagram Technologies 24 bit/384kHz DACs.

The Mark Levinson 390S would work. It has two inputs and an excellent volume control.