New CDP or standalone DAC...?


Current source is the Oppo 103, bought three years ago. Would greatly appreciate any and all comments on buying a better-sounding CDP, or buying a better-sounding DAC and using the 103 as a transport.
Thanks in advance!

Tom
tomcarr

As when you have separates both dac a transport have their own clocks and are not sync’ed to each other. Unless you have like a very expensive DCS system that runs the clock of the dac to the transport via a separate lead and the clock in the transport is not used. TentLabs used to have expensive kits’ to do this, but were complex to implement.


You are correct.  Most transports don't have a word-clock input, so the data comes to the DAC out of sync with any internal reconstruction clock in the DAC.  However, most DACs don't have such a clock anymore.  They recover the clock from the datastream in the S/PDIF receiver, so there is no Master Clock in many DACs.

Quite a few DACs have a resampler input, so these will have a Master Clock.  The resampler frequency is usually not the same as the recovered clock in the DAC, since it is upsampling.  So making the transport clock synchronous to this clock mayl not help.  Besides, there is always sonic degradation caused by hardware upsamplers, even the best of them I have heard.  Even the one I use in my own reclocker has a small impact on the SQ.

IF one wants to get the most from a transport, I would recommend getting a CDROM drive type transport that buffers the data and then spools it from memory.  It's essentially a dedicated purpose computer with S/PDIF output disguised as a CD player.  The Master Clock will be in the Transport, but the buffering will result usually in lower jitter.


Steve N.

Empirical Audio

Thanks guys, budget would be $2k. Have no preference between new DAC or new CDP, but I do want to play SACDs and HDCDs. MQA seems interesting too. 
Appreciate all the responses.

Tom
If you can push your budget schiit yggdrasil and Cambridge Audio CXC will be a sustainable positive upgrade to your system.
Yggy won't do SACDs.

Get an Oppo-205 (their best) and put the other $700 towards room treatments.

You can always use it as a standalone transport later if you want to add a $5,000 DAC...
but I do want to play SACDs and HDCDs. MQA seems interesting too.
Don't think you find something that has proper hdcd PMD100 or PMD200 chips and do sacd as well, let alone mqa also.


Cheers George