What is needed to have the best CD/Digital sound?

Justin,

If I understand you right, you listened to the analog master tape, a CD, and an LP of the same recording session. Is my understanding correct? As I wrote in an earlier post, I suspect most current recording is direct to digital, because analog is more difficult to manipulate and more degradable.

I gave away all my LPs, except for my Westminster Lab series and a couple of early Capitol Full Dimensional Sound (FDS) recordings. These, of course, are monophonic and of mainly historical interest.

db

Tubes are certainly not necessary. Some of the best digital i.e. Reimyo, Electrocompaniet, Oracle, Audiomeca et.al is solid state. The design, parts, and build quality is far more important. After that good isolation and cables will take care of the rest. Good luck.

Get a SACD/CD player

I've been wondering about this myself these last few months. I read a review on the Monarchy M24 DAC & Linestage in PFO and one criticism the reviewer had is its built-in volume control.

"...Is there a weak point to the M24? Yes. It's the built-in volume control, which knocks down the quality of the linestage quite a bit....If you use the Linestage with the built-in control, it'll sound noticeably more closed-in, less dynamic, and less open than it really is, with just a bit of grain at the top. With an external AVC or TVC feeding the linestage, the linestage actually sounds better than the AVC or TVC by itself, and the sound quality leaps to the top of the tube-linestage league."

What is an external AVC or TVC by itself? And who makes such components?