best cd player for 300-500 bux

Flyin2jz,

We have all been there. In my mind (twisted as it is), every CDP has a DAC, most of the money on average CDPs goes into the drive, the case, the licenses, and not too much on the DAC. This changes when you spend lots of money on a CDP. The DAC takes the digital bitstream out of the laser and converts digital to analog so can send it to your amp and speakers. The laser will read the bits, but the Dac makes sense of it. I found that the better the DAC, the better the sound. Each DAC sounds a little different. There are many chips out there that act as DACs. Each one has a different character. Therefore, you can change the sound by changing DACs. The drive or transport may feed more accurate bits to the DAC and therefore affect the sound, but the DAC will add its character to the sound you hear. I found the DLIII DAC to be more like LP than other DACs I have heard (very limited). The magic is in the DAC. There are many fine DACS, in many price ranges and of many "signatures". You will have to experiment to find what is best for you. If you buy used, you can sell at little loss. I have no compulsion to change since I am happy with what I have. The DAC is more important than the transport, IMO. If you use a good digital coax, such as Blue Jeans or Signal Cable or better, you will transfer the bits accurately to the DAC. This will make your CDP sound great and save you money. At least until you decide to upgrade. Then you will be back here, perusing the posts and wanting to have even more! Good luck in your quest.

Flyin2jz,

You need to check on the back of NAD CDP and see what kind of outputs (opitical or coax)that it as. Coax is better, but opitical also works well. Many good DACs in the $300 - 500 price range (and I see some have already been listed). Do a little research and you'll get a feel about the sonic qualities of the various DAC. Other than that hooking up a DAC is a matter of connecting the DAC to output (opitical or coax) on the back of your CDP by use of the apporiate cord, and then connecting the DAC to your amp/pre-amp.

tivoli

How do you make the cdp that i have not use the dac that is inside it now? I really dont think that my unit has a digital or a coax output. I will check it tomorrow night. I seemed to have lost something in my system recently. I had a really good effect of the sound coming from right and left of my listening spot but now its gone. All of the sound seems to be coming from the speakers now which really annoys me. Any ideas on what to check out in my system would be greatly appreciated. A song i always used was "vogue" by madonna the tamborine sound always sounded like it was coming from right beside my spot and now its gone. thanx for any info

dude, weird. did you move your speakers? first thing I would check. are your speakers working correctly? try playing with speaker placement and toe-in.

the cdp will automatically bypass the internal dac if you use one of the digital outs -- coax or optical. it will prob have at least the coax out, most cdp's do.