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How to get into high end digital? (Feeding a DAC)

I am looking primarily at the Schitt Yggdrasil or the Topping D90.
  • How does one feed those?
  • I am assuming any sort of CD transport would output the bit stream?
  • or… they get saved to file and played from some media player into the DACs.

Some example of what is commonly done would be great.

The system currently consists of:
  • TT —> Audio Research PH2
  • An old Nakamichi 5 disk CD player
  • TV
  • Audible Illusions line stage (New tunes on the way, but it still sound OK to me with the old tube in it)
  • Prima Luna (with GoldenLion and TS KT-120 one the way… and I might I’ll get the VTL mono blocks 100w/ch serviced)
  • Vandy 2C and Vandy sub

I also have a Home Theatre pre, which is Roon capable, on the way… So that maybe does some of this for me as well? 

But to be totally honest, the digital side is a bit of mystery to me.
I have always thought we plug in a CD player and the signal comes out. (Maybe with some nuance in DACs, clock jitter, and filtering to separate the higher end from the lower end products.)
128x128holmz
pedroeb
493 posts
 
I'm sure by now we all understand that "Digital is all zeros and ones".

As we were advised all those years ago, "oils ain't oils".

Getting those bits off the medium and into a perfect electrical stream without contamination is the real issue and it ain't necessarily that easy to achieve.

Converting an electrical signal to optical and then back to optical just adds additional complexity that doesn't seem to have any benefits. 
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holmz's avatar
holmz OP
2,328 posts
 
The op asked how to get into digital. Easy USB. Maybe a USB isolator. That eliminates virtually every issue no matter what audiophiles may convince themselves of.
Does this infer a NAS playing/buffering into DAC?
Or
Does it also infer some CD player going in in real-time?
travelinjack's avatar
travelinjack
187 posts
 
I would say abandon the CD player.  Rip everything to FLAC or get digital copies online of the albums you want.
Do you have an old laptop?  If so, use that as your music server.  Buy a large external hard drive and fill it with music.
The Topping D90 is fine.  It is a solid Delta Sigma DAC and doesn't come with the R2R baggage of the Schiit Yiggy.
I replaced all my CDs with DSD, FLAC, and ALAC files over the last few years.  I used my old work ThinkPad T430 to rip the CDs and now use it as my music server.  I send the music files by USB output to a now discontinued SMSL M8 DAC.  If I were shopping for DACs now the D90 would be on my short list.

One the laptop, in Windows 10, I have networked the drive.  I use Foobar2000 as my media player on the laptop and the Foobar2000 Controller app on my phone as a remote control.

The convenience of having all music so easily available to play anytime.  Browse the files using the controller app on my phone and play from anywhere in the house.
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