Dedicated CD Transport vs DAC


Greetings,

Just some honest questions...

In your opinion, based on what you have actually experienced....

1)  Which accounts for the most sonic improvement?  A quality dedicated CD Transport or a Quality DAC?

2)  If a person could assign a percentage... by what % did your cd transport improve your sound?  By what % did your new dac improve your sound?

3)  If you honestly gained an improvement in sound... was it like, " Oh my God, I can't believe how great this improvement is " or is it more like, " I can hear an improvement but no wheres nearly commensurate with the increase in price it cost me."

Coming from being highly invested in vinyl playback for the last 50 years... I'm struggling trying to decide how to improve the cd playback side of my system.

Up to this point in time, I've usually found cd playback to oftentimes sound hard, glaring, sterile, two dimensional, etc.

Which in your mind, helps to eliminate the above sound qualities that I dislike?  A new dedicated cd transport or a new dac?

Thanks much for taking the time to reply and help me better understand!

Best wishes,

Don

 

no_regrets

@facten My apologies! I think I may have miss understood what you were saying about the optimization of one output vs the others. Totally my bad.

I was thinking that they optimize just one output; meaning the remaining output’s would not sound good. So, in other words, don’t bother with that transport if you can’t use the optimized output.

Im sorry I misunderstood, but appreciate you helping me understand better!

Yes, the Aero may indeed limit some people due to the relatively few inputs that it has. However, based on what I have heard from it so far, I’m enjoying what it’s doing with the RCA input 👍

Best wishes,

Don

Thanks for your thoughts on the LTA and not surprised it sounds great. I’ve also got a full loom of AZ cables so we’re definitely on the same page there. I also have an LTA MZ2 pre (with upgraded LPS) and know what you mean about their stuff not sounding overly “tubey.” The positive traits are there but just doesn’t scream tubes, which is what I really like about it and exactly why I bought it.

Anyway, I forgot to mention another cheaper option that would be to get DDC to improve the performance of your Rotel rather than buying a whole new transport. I bought a used DDC to try it out and kept it because it produced very significant improvements. Here’s a Denafrips Hermes that I believe you can return if it doesn’t transform the performance of your Rotel — my guess is it would with its excellent OCXO clock. Just another option again FWIW.

https://tmraudio.com/components/d-a-converters/denafrips-hermes-ddc-d-d-converter-4/

Strange the LTA has balanced out but no balanced in. That would be a more optimal choice if it did!

@soix  It would seem that we may have similar tastes with us both having AZ cabling and LTA products wink

I appreciate you bringing up the DDC as an option and sharing the link for the Denafrips Hermes with me as well.  I'll have to try and learn more about that as a possible option.

Thanks again and best wishes,

Don

 

Don,

I had a Mutec MC3+USB reclocker / master clock that I bought for my Aurender's USB out.   That device can accept and distribute 10m and word clock .   The Mutec 10m ref clock is $$$ so I thought for now I would try the LHY OCK-2  by Jay's Audio.  It's really well built and can output sine or square wave at 50 or 75 Ohms so it's pretty flexible.   

The Teac clock is 50 Ohm sine wave but the 701t can accept either.   I've been super busy so I haven't done as much listening as I hoped but so far I think I prefer the square wave, there is a difference.