@clearthinker "
I have always wondered why someone doesn't build a player that reads the disc without using any clock, buffers the bits for half a second or so and spoonfeeds them to the DAC at nice even intervals using a separate clock?"
PS Audio has been doing something like that for quite some time, with their original CD transport, the current SACD/CD transport and the one it replaced. It reads the bits off the disk, places them in a memory buffer then delivers them in a more "timing sensitive" mode to the DAC. From what I've read, conventional CD players do some re-reads and corrections as part of the process of getting the bits off the physical disk, which apparently effects the timing of the bits arriving at the DAC.
Yes, "bits are bits", but what people who are digital audio experts say, the timing of those bits is crucial to the sound quality.
On a related note, yesterday I "pulled the trigger" and ordered the new PS Audio PST PerfectWave SACD Transport, taking advantage of their sale price, which is good through the end of October. I currently own their previous model, the DMP and their DirectStream DAC. From what I read, the PST provides a noticeable improvement over the DMP, especially for conventional CDs.
PS Audio has been doing something like that for quite some time, with their original CD transport, the current SACD/CD transport and the one it replaced. It reads the bits off the disk, places them in a memory buffer then delivers them in a more "timing sensitive" mode to the DAC. From what I've read, conventional CD players do some re-reads and corrections as part of the process of getting the bits off the physical disk, which apparently effects the timing of the bits arriving at the DAC.
Yes, "bits are bits", but what people who are digital audio experts say, the timing of those bits is crucial to the sound quality.
On a related note, yesterday I "pulled the trigger" and ordered the new PS Audio PST PerfectWave SACD Transport, taking advantage of their sale price, which is good through the end of October. I currently own their previous model, the DMP and their DirectStream DAC. From what I read, the PST provides a noticeable improvement over the DMP, especially for conventional CDs.