Upgrade my CD player or futile effort?

@holmz,what I do in the car is either stream from my server using Plex, or I use the Qobuz app on my iPhone.  No need for CD's!

Yeah, but that assume one is not in the middle of nowhere, with no phone towers within hours.

I mean, I understand when you say your digital knowledge is limited, but you’ve spent 20x more on your vinyl rig yet ask if trying to upgrade your $500 CD player is “futile?” Just how bad do you think digital sound is??? What the hell do you expect from a total investment of 500 bucks? How would a $500 vinyl rig including cartridge and phono pre compare to your current setup? Where does simple common sense kick in here man? C’mon. 

It is just pulling the 1s and 0s off of the disk. When they pushed these in the 80s it was spruicked as God’s gift to audio.
But I can see the DAC and the jitter are important.

I realized you've already committed to a specific upgrade but I'll add my 2 cents anyway. As important as a DAC may be, the transport is at least equally significant. The elimination of vibration and an accurate reading of the disc is where all the sound originates. If that part of the system is inferior, everything which follows will suffer.

Again, it either pulls the bits off, or it has bit errors.

Don't forget that you can still service your CD player.
(1) Clean the contacts with a contact cleaner.
(2) Check to see that it is level.
(3) Aftermarket Feet to assist with vibration control.
(4) Open up the unit and use dynamat - again for vibration control.  
https://youtu.be/VoxC3st7WQw

Do these transports all give dodgy numbers out?


I am in a similar boat with a daggy old CD player. I would like to come into something like a Topping D70, but then does the transport matter at all?
And then, there are also 10 MHz clock, and other rates that once can use to sync the DAC.

e,g. https://nadac.merging.com/product/merging-player

@pindac, I really appreciate your detailed journey regarding CDs.
It does point to me that digital can be a plus to anyone if done correctly, even to those who's systems are strictly analog vinyl. Way to keep an opened mind!

The Denafrips Ares II came in early! Got it yesterday noon. Spent a few hours testing it out with my Marantz CD6005. Here are my impressions:
First off, the CD6005 needs to have the audio EX setting OFF. I had it on audio EX 2 and no sound came out. Rechecked all the connections and perplexing sat in front of it thinking what the hell? Then it downed on me that maybe the audio EX 2 being there to turn the digital signal into something more analog wasn't sending the full digital signal the DAC needed. Sure enough, once on audio EX OFF, the sound came on.
The Dac supposedly has a 100 hrs burn-in at factory before shipping. However I also read they recommend to leave the unit on fully powered for 10 days before setting it on the standby mode when not in use.
Meaning what I heard for a few hours yesterday will change, probably in a positive way.
The first and most important thing to me is to find out which of the OS or the NOS setting is best for you. It can be adjusted on the front of the unit. OS has the option of a slow or fast filter, NOS is not affected by the filters. As I found out NOS is 100% the way to go for my analog ears. A lot of folks online swear by the OS slow setting. I would bet that these folks have digital ears because that setting is basically as close to full digital sound you could get. Analytical, super clear sound, so much that it can be strident and tiring. Not my cup of tea at all. The NOS setting is musical, enveloping, makes most music sound live, without exaggerated coloration. In short it sounds as close to analog as you can get. I honestly don't understand why anyone would buy an r2r DAC and set it on OS to make it sound digital. Get a chip DAC instead. This r2r is meant to sound analog and NOS does just that. I also set the phase to positive instead of negative because I gather the majority of recordings would sound better that way. So far the sound is very big, very wide with a very clear definition between all the instruments while maintaining a solid togetherness. It's hard to understand how the sound can be that clear and well defined while having no hint of harshness but present a smooth, well rounded analog sound. It is like live music, the way I like it, not colored, or at least not overly colored. I am impressed so far and may find out a CD transport may not be necessary. I am not at analog level yet, but getting closer. Will know more in a couple weeks.

Congrats on your purchase and happy you are so please with the results. 

Great news. Please post any further updates as you get used to the new piece!