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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
holmz's avatar
holmz OP
2,328 posts
 
Pure digital is totally accurate but not everyone's cup of tea. We are influenced by our past.
If I can measure the output and compare it to the input and see that it more true than comparing that stream to the Vinyl, then I can convince myself.
I may not like it, but I am pretty much a “by the numbers fellow”.
And I would then likely try and understand why I like the worse one better.
I know that is the case comparing my VTLs to the Haus-Boss’s NAD amp. The VTLS have a huge amount of IMD. The NAD was more faithful to the input.
jasonbourne52's avatar
jasonbourne52
2,863 posts
 
@henry53: parts costs to build DACs are are in the hundreds at most! Four-figure  and up DACs are high-profit items! Don't forget these companies are into it to make money!
jasonbourne52's avatar
jasonbourne52
2,863 posts
 
A $500 Cambridge CXC transport + a $300 Khadas DAC is a formidable combination!
mahler123
3,364 posts
 
OP

You sound stressed.  Relax.  Digital is easy.  Get a decent CDP or transport, a cable that is at least one step above Radio Shack, plug into a DAC or else just use the DAC in the CDP, sit back and enjoy music.  Add a streamer later if you want, or else just use a computer for that (presumably you own one of those already).
  It would help if you told what your budget is.  You are all over the place.  I don’t want to recommend an $80K digital set up if your budget is 8 cents
travelinjack's avatar
travelinjack
187 posts
 
I guess I should have expanded a bit on the baggage.
The Yiggy has some historical baggage as one of the worst measuring expensive DACs when it was first introduced. That no longer seems to be the case but since it is R2R that makes it somewhat like the tube equivalent of DACs since R2R is considered to color the sound instead of being transparent. That is true of all R2R DACs not just the Yiggy.

@Holmz

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