Has CD playback evolved in the last 5 years?

I've noticed big sonic improvements in the last 2 to 3 years, so I would have to say there as been a big evolution in the past five. To bad you can't audition some of the latest digital gear it really is getting sonically impressive. If your happy with the sound of your Arcam I would recommend an upgrade in that line.

Will have an opportunity in a couple weeks to audition a new Exemplar modded Oppo. But within the last year I've gone to wireless streaming of my 800 plus cd library and find it very convenient. Therefore, the bar is set very high for the Exemplar. It will have to be very magical before I spend the money and replace my Arcam.

I agree with Edorr. I own an XDS1 and an MPS-5 both of which convert PCM to DSD and they both sound superb.

I do think they have taken CD playback to the next level.

But I still keep my Ayon CD5S. There's a time and place for everything and there's something right about the quad PCM1704UK (even if it's an old R2R chip). It's not as detailed or as resolving but with the tube output, it's a really good alternative sometimes.

Doggiehowser, that is only three. What four >$10K CD players / DACs do you own for the other days of the week?

What preamp do you use with the XDS1? I'm still on the fence about a preamp with my DAC2X.

Probably the biggest evolution in CD players is the use of CDROM drives and buffering the data before spooling it out to reduce jitter. Similar to the way Computer Audio works.

The biggest evolution in digital audio is elimination of the optical disk completely. Better retention of the music data on hard disk, and better SQ is possible in the playback due to lower jitter.

Jitter is the #1 problem with digital audio and there have been great advances in the last 5 years to minimize this. It can never be zero, regardless of what the marketing BS says.

The next major milestone is to properly characterize jitter and its audiblity.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio