Good evening,interested in moving to a DAC

need to clearify,1500.00 per unit,thanks robin

Hi Robin,

Re your question about pros and cons, keep in mind that going to a separate transport and dac will not necessarily get you better sound than you would get from an integrated (one-box) cd player, especially within that price range or lower. What it will mainly get you is the flexibility to use other digital sources, such as a computer, in addition to the transport.

I'm sure others will offer suggestions of transport + dac combinations, but if you don't foresee the possibility of using digital sources other than the transport, the following are some well regarded integrated cdp's that I am aware of, which sell new for between roughly $1100 and $3500. Note that one of them can also be used as a dac.

Bryston BCD-1 (this is what I use, and have been very pleased with; about $2.9K new)

Doge 6 (about $1600 new)

Sony SCD-XA5400ES (about $1100 - $1500 new, depending on dealer)

Raysonic (various models; I'm not particularly familiar with them)

Simaudio Moon CD3.3 (this model provides a digital input, allowing it to be used as a dac in conjunction with a computer or other digital source; about $3K new)

Ayre CX-7eMP (about $3.5K new)

Best regards,
-- Al

if you go transport/dac route AND buy used, I would recommend finding a transport that uses a very robust transport such as Phillips CDMPro-2 or similar. these things last "forever" and are still available should you need to replace

Audio Note,, Bel Canto, North Star, etc use the transport I mentioned and there are surely others!

Another good transport design is the VRDS made by TEAC. Parts for a lot of them -- laser assemblies -- are still available.