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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
melbguy1
1,438 posts
 
I own a high end cd player (Vitus) which makes old cds sound musical and enjoyable, so given my music collection is mostly comprised of cd's, it is a great friend. The Vitus is also a great dac. Though unlike you, I have a relatively small collection of cd's & plan on continuing to collect cd's until storage becomes an issue. At that point I plan on adding a Server transport to feed off my Vitus dac, then start the process of archiving my collection onto the server - with backup hopefully to a mirror drive in the same product (like Burmester), or to an external drive.

Then there are products like the Bladelius Embla which has a good built in dac & slot drive which allows you to rip or play cd's like a normal cd player. To me, servers and streamers are the future. With that said, I plan on keeping my cd player for the long haul (mainly as a dac, but also to occasionally play cds). I don't think i'll ever lose the enjoyment of spinning shiny discs.
mesch
3,529 posts
 
I am with Lowrider and Melbguy on this. Purchase a quality DAC having more than a single SPDIF input and start by using your 8005 as a transport. You will have the flex to upgrade the transport if you find desirable and/or add a server.

Good luck in your quest!
dylanfan's avatar
dylanfan OP
139 posts
 
I am leaning towards a really good DAC. Thanks for all the advice. Any recommendations for a DAC. I will eventually go the server route and load CDs on it so it has to have a usb input. A friend recommended a Schiit. What do you think
melbguy1
1,438 posts
 
Dylan, it depends on your budget & whether you want a tubed or ss dac. A lot of people think highly of the PS Audio DirectStream dac. There are also a lot of good tube dacs like Lampizator and PS Audio. I'm obviously a fan of Vitus Audio.
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