Please Recommend Transport + DAC for $5K total


My current Jolida cdp is growing pretty long in the tooth. I could just replace it with another cdp, but it seems more prudent to go with separate transport and DAC, at this point. Would prefer gear made in N. America. Total expenditure not to exceed 5K. I'm considering Sim Audio Moon 260CD or Bryston BDP-3 as a transport. The thing is, I prefer the option of demoing at home and I haven't (so far) found any vendors offering that option with the Sim Audio piece. As for a DAC, same thing: it has to be something I can try out at home, like a Schiit Yggy or Benchmark DAC2HGC. Can anyone suggest other possibilities, given these parameters? My system: Wells Audio Majestic Integrated, Silverline 17.5 monitors, JD100 cdp. Speaker wire: Audio Art SE. Power cables: Audio Art Statement. IC's: Audioquest Cheetah.  Thanks! 
stuartk
@gdhal - I have listened to sample rate converters and reclockers. While reclockers will definitely help a bad source, in the end you still end up losing resolution and detail. It’s much better to have the original waveform data clocked properly at the source rather than reclocking a bad jitter source. Take for example an oppo Blu-ray. Listening to PCM audio through HDMI means the data is clocked badly at the source since the audio needs to be spread across multiple HDMI data packets and shared with video data. The HT processor has to try to reclock this properly. In real life, the sound may be okay, but it just doesn’t have the resolution / detail / air / texture. Listening to the same PCM from Oppo using digital coax is just highly superior, and even then this is not clocked as good as a dedicated PCM transport.

@melm - Cambridge CXC for cd transport. There’s one used on audiogon from Canada for $295. Hi-Fi Heaven is selling display models for $399. Crutchfield has them new for $449. Then get a nice DH Labs D-750 coax with BNC on one end (use the BNC input on the LKS). The CXC only has RCA digital coax output.
USB is likely to sound worse than coax spdif, but that’s a guess.
Just a correction the CXC has also optical output but the coax output in general is the best option between the two. Bellow 5k I can recommend the Mcintosh d150 a remarkable DAC ( with the CXC as a transport) it has the latest features, extremely low noise,very good dynamics and transparency .absolutely neutral and natural sound.

Just use your existing transport if it still works and add a reclocker like the Synchro-Mesh. This will put you in the $10K transport performance range for only $599-$1400.

Then, read all of the audiostream.com Recommended - "Greatest Bits" on DACs for each year. These guys pick the best DACs. They have good systems. You can rely on their opinions. I am not affiliated.

Steve N.

Empirical Audio

The CXC is very good I use it with the Yggdarsil. It is Coax and Optical
I also have a very good Lifeatec Optical cable the Wywires Litespeed Dig cable is the Coax connection. You can connect both Opt and Coax from the DXD to the Yiggy and switch to each for comparison of the connection and the cables being used. It beat my SA15s2 as a transport.