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New CD player, Transport or DAC?

Finally got my system where it sounds great to me. Have Primaluna power amp and preamp. Power amp now has KT 120 power tubes. Have a great turntable and a pair of Klipsch Cornwall's with Crites crossovers and a pair of Dynaudio 1.1 monitors. Some room treatment now and working on cables. My weak piece now is my CD player. Older CDs still sound bad. Newer well recorded CDs sound great. I have been using a Marantz 6005 CD player. I wanted to make some of my rare albums into CDs so I dragged out a 15 year old at least Pioneer cd recorder. Hooked it up and my wife and I did an a-b between it and the Maranrz and neither of us could tell a difference. So in 15 years CD players haven't improved or are they both mid fi CD players? I do have an Emotiva dac and some things sound marginally better through it and some things sound worse. Long story to get to my point. Should I invest in s high dollar CD player (I have probably 6000 CDs) or a high quality DAC or a DAC and transport. Most of my listening is done on CDs. My albums sound great through my system but I don't have room to replace CDs with lps. Any suggestions of brands to look at or things to consider? Thanks for any help.
128x128dylanfan
dylanfan's avatar
dylanfan OP
139 posts
 
Opinions on Creek EV 50 CD player?
resnatura
1 posts
 
Hi, Dylanfan. I have one of the 1st iterations made of an unspectacular soundind, Sony 5 disc (rotating, lazy susan-style transport) that offers a pretty decent method for loading, holding, shuffling & moving abouts 5 discs of your choosing. However, the built-in DAC is @ best a primitive affair with underwhelming sound. I bought an early version of a Musical Fidelity DAC, the now discontinued V90 with a 24 bit 96kHz capable Burr-Brown chipset, and the sound of all my CD playback was very audibly improved.

I'd say look for a DAC with a good core chipset, like the Burr-Brown (Lord knows they rapidly advance with ever higher sampling rates and better bit depth. Just choose a DAC W/ the flexibility to connect to your player's raw digital output whether digital coax, optical, or USB or even firework if your Apple centric. Let me know what you find. I probably could use another dedicated converter, since I often find myself switching it from duty translating the digital out of my macbook pro & mac pro tower in the office by day & night duty getting the Sony out to my Manley Stingray integrated tube amp. This and a pair of Anthony Gallo Reference 3's make for a pretty well dimensioned soundstage. I prefer spinning my tables, but the 5 disc transport sees significant use, and I don't have to garage sale the collection for pennies on the dollar. Good luck! Happiness, Andy chomicz
akg_ca's avatar
akg_ca
2,240 posts
 
There are many high-end CD players with their own high-end dacs
E.g. REGA ISIS valve, NAIM, Meridian, DCS, Mark Levinson, among numerous others.
They are all north of $10k , but maybe a used one may fall into your budget

These are not mid-fi or entry level hi-fi. Any of these will smoke the suggested comps.
rodge827's avatar
rodge827
619 posts
 
Dylanfan,
What is your budget?
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