DAC as an upgrade

The Bel Canto DAC2 sells for less than $700 used here regularly. Pick one up with a digital cable and determine for yourself. If the difference isn't enough or if you don't here a difference you can resell the dac. You won't lose much. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Be careful with used DACs. Old Benchmarks had worse op-amps and other problems. Many companies like Benchmark and I am sure Bel Canto offer free trial at home (30 days in case of Benchmark) - you like it you keep it - if not send it back. Difference will be dramatic in my opinion - there is even huge difference between different DACs. My main objective at the beginning was to be independent of the transport (mechanical component) and the same time DVD players have excellent tracking. Sonic benefits I realized later.

I notice my Denon has both digital out and digital in connections (both coax and optical for each).

Rather than changing DACs, I could try hooking up a digital processor of some sort with these connections and run the built in DAC for now as a first step.

I have some CDs that sound flawless to me and others that I have some issues with. Are there digital processors out there that can be introduced to help with common problems associated with lesser CD recordings, like sibilance, excessive brightness, etc.?

I would go with a Benchmark Dac 1 ($1,000 - $1,300 with or without usb input), of Bel Canto Dac3 if you can swing $2,500.

As for the digital processor issue, I'm a purist at heart. If CD is recorded with sibilance, etc., my system will reveal it and I haven't tried to make my system do anything than reveal the good (and, unfortunately, the bad). I'm a little out of my league here. I would listen to the problem recording on a high end cd player (and equivilent system) and see what you hear. I'm not one to try to color sound with an outboard processor. If the CD sounds good (or better) on the high end player, maybe a change in cables may help-not really sure. My point is that you need to ascertain if it's the disc, or your player/system. I have a CD with a bit of sibilence and on my Esoteric X03-SE, you hear it-it's there; on my squeezebox/benchmark, the sibilence is greatly reduced-you only hear it if you really try, and it is barely noticible. I don't think thats a plus for the benchmark--to me, it's just that the benchmark is not as revealing as the Esoteric. I'm sure there are others here with alot more experience than me about this.

Cerrot,

You're right, of course, but I find it hard to determine when a deficiency is in fact in the recording when the only way to tell is to listen on a player. Even very high end playback systems like DCS employ digital signal processing algorithms to some extent to produce those smooth results. If I don't hear it on a DCS, for example, I don't necessarily think that proves its not there.

I think its all in how smart any particular playback system is in handling the more common issues found in CD recordings to produce the sound they are shooting for.

With vinyl, in many cases, when something didn't sound right, I could visually inspect the grooves and detect damage like wear, scratches, dirt, etc. pretty accurately, actually.

No way to do that with digital. You hear whatever the system gives you after its done converting the bits to a waveform, and that's pretty much it.

I can't look at pits on the surface of a CD and tell whether they are right or not. Sounds like a useful talent, though, if someone out there can!

I read something very enlightening recently in a magazine. The guy who is the talent behind the rock group Boston was lamenting the shortcomings of digital technology in discussing recent remastering of his old material. HE pointed out that the world, sound and music is analog in nature, not digital, and that the whole concept of digital music is an artificial man-made approximation of reality and very hard to get right as a result. Interesting stuff.