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What the benifit of using a separate dac?

Hi, I have a Sim Audio Moon Exclipse Cd Player, my question is what's the benifit of using a separate DAC, when do you know that your player is out dated to the point that you need to upgrade or are you better to use a external dac.Using the digital out put of the cd player are you by passing all internal clock and dac's etc, then the player becomes just a transport? Is there is a benifit to be gained by doing this, what sort of dac would you look for, what the differance between the better brands? I currently have Pass labs X1 pre and x350.5 power, mit 3.1 speaker cables, 2.2 interconnects and Talon firebird speaker, Iam only interested in red book, would be great if any body could shed some light on this subject for me.
k_rose
jax2
3,031 posts
 
Your reply sounded superbly utilitarian and pragmatic until you let that slip in! LOL aesthetics is important after all! I 'll admit I am just as guilty of that as the next guy ;-)

I guess I ain't "the next guy": I don't give a tinker's cuss what the thing looks like if it performs well. This is ironic considering I'm in the visual arts and am a very visual person. It's all about whatever serves the music for me. If it happens to be ugly I'll put it behind cabinet doors (most of my system is - though I'm sure many would consider those things beautiful). Most of what I see in audio design is pretty boring visually as far as I'm concerned - most of what others here consider beautiful just looks like yet another variation on billet boxes with blue lights. The only designer I'd consider an exception to that is Electronluv, but I cannot afford Josh's stuff. If I could, it would be out for all to see.
fplanner2000
616 posts
 
FWIW - Alex Peychev of APL HiFi is NOT a "modder" in the sense of the others mentioned above. He guts the component, save for the transport and display connections, etc. and replaces everything with his OWN DESIGNS - clock, different and more DACS from AKM, output stage, etc. That's what he did with my Denon 3910 and what he does with the Esoteric transports. This is a very important distinction and is in fact exactly what DOES separate him from the "modders".

My 3910 bears NO sonic relation to what it used to sound like prior to Alex's rebuild - it is totally different machine, but in the same box and with the same crappy transport.(nobody's perfect...)

As far as Alex being AWOL, he should be back this weekend and explained his absence on the APL HiFi forum several weeks ago. A number of us have also received e-mails from him about ongoing projects.

He will be building a separate DAC for myself and probably a number of others, for many of the reasons stated above.
jax2
3,031 posts
 
My 3910 bears NO sonic relation to what it used to sound like prior to Alex's rebuild - it is totally different machine, but in the same box and with the same crappy transport.(nobody's perfect...)

A good friend had an APL 3910. I spent a couple of days at his place listening to various music I was very familiar with. It sounded great. I never heard a stock unit, but it sure didn't sound like any $1k stock player I've ever heard.

As far as Alex being AWOL, he should be back this weekend and explained his absence on the APL HiFi forum several weeks ago. A number of us have also received e-mails from him about ongoing projects.

Glad to hear it. Since most folks here are not likely on the APL forum why don't you share his post here (or the gist of it). There have been a few posts on A'gon and AA that indicated there were folks who had been waiting for their modified players for quite some time, and that his customer relations person had to leave for health reasons. Good to hear he's on his way back - seems like he's very talented at what he does.
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