TO DAC OR NOT TO DAC?

Sam wrote a glowing review of the new MF upsampling DAC, which got me wondering, too, despite my wariness of reviews in consumer magazines. The real question in my mind: is upsampling truly the trump card? I've read in a number of places that it is. I've been considering upgrading from an Arcam cd72 to the FMJ23 and now wonder if the MF would be a better choice for about half the money? An a-b comparison, practically speaking, is impossible to arrange. I have an older MF preamp that I really like. Anybody who has done a-b's between upsampling dacs and known good non-upsampling CDP's please weigh in. Sam said the MF improved the sound of his Rega Jupiter, and that adding an anti-jitter box helped even further.

A totally irrelevant opinion.. my source is Mac Mini, my speakers either Dynaudio Xeo 20 or Edifier S3000 Pro (both active speakers). I found direct cabling was good, but putting a humble Schiit Modius in the middle made the sound a lot crisper. Trying a more expensive DAC made very little difference. 

Hello to all,

I have a perhaps strange, perhaps normal question.

I have a Marantz SACD-30n CD/SACD player.   I like its sound pretty much, and I like what it does (i.e. receives internet radio, can use the DAC portion for streaming from my iPad).  It’s a nice Swiss army knife of a player. 

But I keep wondering:  would a separate DAC improve things, to help digital to sound more realistic/natural/musical?  (I do tend to prefer my TT analogue set-up.) 

I’ve been looking at various R2R DACs or tube-based DACs. 

I guess the entry-point question is how much would I have to spend to notice much of a difference that is truly better? 
 

 

 

Thanks for any responses. 
 

 

@hoodjem if I understand you correctly, you are asking which is better a CDP or a DAC? That is an interesting question and I do not know.

One salesman asked me "Do you listen to CDs or streaming"? If  you do streaming, then a DAC would make sense. That was a purely functional reason, not considering SQ. Assumption by the salesman was SQ was not affected. Maybe you can get more for you dollar with a DAC since a DAC has less parts.

Sure a Dac can improve your sound, if the Dac sounds better than what you already have. The only way to know is to try one.