CD players = dead?

johnread57Keep us posted on your Audio quest/journey. I, too, have spent time w/ the ARC CD9 in a system w/ an ARC Ref5SE preamp and Bryston 4B-SST power amp on Wilson Audio Sasha/Sophia speakers. Transparent cabling all around made for a very good audition. Regarding a spinner like the SA-10, at this level of price and performance, synergy is key.I was wondering about the matching Marantz integrated amp?Happy Listening!

A few years back I did a comparison of a Cambridge Audio CD player (800 series I think) and a PS Audio memory player. The PS Audio was far superior in my mind so I sold the Cambridge Audio. I firmly believe that stripping digital byte by byte in a CDROM drive, and then using the right digital to analog playback of the error free, bit perfect music file will always be better than the best "real time" digital streaming (actually analog streaming of digital data) in an old school Redbook transport. And cheaper too, as the exotic techniques to maintain disc rotational speeds, vibration control, and laser reflection and refraction are not needed in a CDROM, as compared with a high end CD transport. The on the fly error correction algorithms employed in most CD transports are also unnecessary, as a CDROM can read or re-read the CD as necessary to obtain an error free bit perfect copy.  

My experience with my CD collection bears this out, as the ripped files (using dBPoweramp as I went to a Bryston BDP) have never sounded better, and I hear things that I thought were missing in the CD pressing, but actually were there all the time and are clearly audible in the ripped files.  So I cannot see a real reason to keep making CD transports, and this is born out in the trends where all the high volume mass produced transports are ceasing production.

My CDs are alive, well and singing for me like they never have before with so so much more detail being revealed thanks to my replacement of previous CD playing technology [EMM Labs CDSD Transport, DCC2 DAC, Marantz SA-7S1 (used as a transport), Rey Audio Kinoshita R-DAC, Esoteric K-03x (used as a CD integrated player and separately as a transport & DAC)] with the Jay's Audio CDT-3 Mk2 transport feeding the Denafrips Terminator DAC.with the connection between the two being i2s HDMI thereby bypassing the S/PIDF interface in the Terminator. And here is my story of my new CD experience:

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/denafrips-terminator-jay-s-audio-cdt-3-mk2-a-review

Thanks! for sharing- bluewolfthat is quite a collection of transports and DACs.Happy Listening!

Well I have 5 CD players all can be used as transport, and. DACS , and lots of collections of xrcd, sacd, more than thousand cd collections, So in my place CD players is Alive and Singing.....by the way I also have Four DACS...