Are DACs superior to top-graded regular CD Players

There are disadvantages to having a separate dac/transport. One is the obvious, in having to have a digital interconnect between the two, which itself is never perfect.
The other one that not many know of is there are two clocks, one in the transport and one in the dac, and they are not sync'd to each other.
In a stand alone CD player there is one clock that serves both transport and dac section so they are sync'd together.

This is why Cambridge in their original Reference 1 Transport/Dac pair, had an extra interconnect between dac and transport to slave the transport which didn't have a clock, to their dac.

Also why Tent Labs made a very expensive mod board you could buy to put in your dac to get the clock timing signal out to the transport with another interconnect that you had to take the clock out of so it was then it would be slaved to the dac.

The advantage to having separate transport and dac, is that you can change the dac when you want a change in sound, and you can have multiple sources/transports if your dac has multiple inputs. There is no sound advantage.

Cheers George

Overall, I would agree with George. My advice would be to just listen to everything within your budget and pick what sounds best, regardless of design.

11-16-15: Georgelofi
The advantage to having separate transport and dac, is that you can change the dac when you want a change in sound, and you can have multiple sources/transports if your dac has multiple inputs. There is no sound advantage.

Depending on the specific designs, though, a sonic advantage may very conceivably result from separating the two functions into separate components, due to the reduction in electrical noise that in an integrated component may couple from the transport section to the D/A converter circuit, resulting in increased jitter (i.e., random or pseudo-random fluctuations in the timing of D/A conversion).

On the other hand, though, dividing the two functions between separate components can also result in increased jitter, as a result of various interface-related effects. Including ground loop effects, less than perfect impedance matches, cable effects as George mentioned, jitter in the timing of the S/PDIF or AES/EBU signal supplied by the transport, and jitter that may be introduced by the DAC as it extracts the clock from those signals (if, as is often the case, it is that extracted clock which ultimately controls the timing of D/A conversion).

The bottom line, as is often the case in audio: There are numerous tradeoffs involved, and the net result of those tradeoffs depends on the specific designs.

Regards,
-- Al

Just to add to what I said above Warmglowingtubesart.
Get the best sounding cd player you can get, with a digital input, that way you can use it as a dac as well for computer/server based music, that way you'll have the best of both worlds.

Cheers George

Georgelofi:

"The other one that not many know of is there are two clocks, one in the transport and one in the dac, and they are not sync'd to each other.
In a stand alone CD player there is one clock that serves both transport and dac section so they are sync'd together."

Exactly right!

I have never found separate DACs superior.