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I need help - Better DAC or NEW CD player?

I am in the middle of purchasing some components for my new system, unfortunately, reading posts on a rainy night on Audigon only makes my "upgradeatitis" syndrom more acute.

The problem is that some time ago, I bought a squeezebox Duet, to use as transport for lossless files. The idea obviously was to get a good DAC to go along with it.

The one I was almost set on was the Dacmagic, which gets very good reviews here and almost everywhere you look. But, on the other hand, I am willing to spend a little more......Now, the thing is my current CD player is a Rotel RCD 1072, and was wondering whether this Dacmagic would give me any improvements if I use the rotel as a transport for it.

Or, I could get for example a Wyred DAC or a Benchmark DAC1 and use the Rotel for transport, but I dont know the limits of the Rotel as transport alone, I dont want to spend 600 more bucks on a better DAC to be fed with 2 "not so good" transports (the Duet and the Rotel).

So I am kinda stuck!! On the other hand I am contemplating getting the Dacmagic to use only for the Duet, and getting a new better CD player altogether, which puts me into another doubt, I dont know if the little money I can for the rotel + lets say 1000 more will really give me any improvements in the system if I purchase a whole new CD player since the Rotel is said to be very capable.

FWIW my amp will be a W4S STI500 and speakers are B&W 803D.

Let me know what you think about this and your suggestions on what you would do.... thanks in advance for all your help!
demianm
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,426 posts
 
Demianm - Toslink creates more jitter than coax but with Benchmark it doesn't matter. Benchmark tested DAC1 using 500' of cat5 cable instead of coax and there was no audible difference. I use, with Benchmark, Toslink from Airport Express and coax from DVD player and cannot tell the difference.
4est
507 posts
 
Mapman,

I stand by my original statement. I agree that all DACs sound different. I also assert that the connections make a difference, and that the Benchmark is not as immune to inputs as they claim it to be. The overall signature remains consistent, but the inputs sound different. I hear differences with USB cables, spdif and toslink. Furthermore on different cables of the same type and usb converters such as the hiFace- not to mention transports especially. I am not knocking the units at all- I own two, a USB version and the HDR one. I just feel it does a disservice to others perpetuating the myth (IMO) that bits are just bits. Bits are only just bits if they are there at the right time IME.

Bottom line, as with most things in audio, everything matters. Jitter is real, and you are best off avoiding it in the first place, as opposed to "dealing" with it after the fact.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,093 posts
 
" I hear differences with USB cables, spdif and toslink. Furthermore on different cables of the same type and usb converters such as the hiFace- not to mention transports especially. "

That is interesting and surprises me a bit. I'm not sure exactly how to account for those kinds of differences with the BEnchmark specifically but I imagine there is an explanation. Perhaps there are bits being dropped or something like that in certain cases. maybe someone else can offer a technical explanation for what you hear.
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,426 posts
 
"bits are just bits. Bits are only just bits if they are there at the right time IME."

That's what we're talking about - jitter (noise in time domain). Jitter creates sidebands at -60 to -80 dB still audible since not harmonically related to root frequencies (noise with complex signal). Benchmark's jitter bandwidth is just a few Hz and at kHz frequencies suppression is over 100dB (overall -160dB).

Tricky part is to use the same transport to compare Toslink to coax. Once you have different transports all bets are off. It is not only that one might be not "bit transparent" but might have weaker laser, dirty lens etc. It is not related to price of CDP (cheap DVD players have great tracking) or jitter but just not reading information properly. Some people use green markers etc but I ripped CDs as data (CDP cannot do it working in real time) using MAX program and have perfect long lasting version on my server.

In addition to above Toslink breaks ground loops and therefore in certain situations overall system might sound better (but Benchmark has nothing to do with it)

Easy way to test is to connect transport that has both coax and Toslink and listen on the headphones switching inputs. I don't hear any difference that way and theory says it shouldn't be any but there is still placebo effect. If one believes that there should be some difference then he will be able to hear below -160dB easily.
swanny76109
382 posts
 
I have the bel canto DAC3 and I cannot tell the difference between sources except for the usb and toslink connections, which I don't use anyway. AES/EBU, coax and SPDIF all sound the same to me. I cannot tell the difference using my high end CD player using balanced inputs vs. my squeezebox running flac files using a basic digital coax cable--and that is switching immediately from one source to the other using the DAC3 to switch sources. The DAC3's asynchronous upsampler makes it all sound great, and comes highly recommended. The bonus is you can also run the DAC3 as a preamp using the digital volume control, but I find I like a preamp (I run a Pass XP10) for dynamics and an even better soundstage.
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