Lewinskih01,
"Maybe the real question behind this is whether I can live without a CD player."
I noticed an interesting factoid on an audio trade news blog yesterday, to the effect that upwards of 80% of CDs now sold in the USA are thought to be played only once - ripped to other media and then reproduced from electronic storage.
The figure sounds high, but whether accurate or not, we seem to have reached a level in audio quality and convenience that renders CD players much less important.
In any event, my CD player is not improved by routing it through my DAC, and I almost never use mine anymore (esp. since discovering the Theater View mode in JRiver Media 15!).
Other issues aside, the simple fact is that it's now easier to extract bit-perfect (e.g.,amplitude perfect) data away from the EMI/RFI nightmare known as a PC box, with advanced clocking to eliminate virtually ALL jitter in the time domain.
If you need multiple I/O options, suggest you also consider the Antelope Zodiac Plus as a design that includes world-class clock, DAC and analog stages. It seems to make sense that eliminating extra cabling and boxes, and positioning of the clock as close as possible to the DAC stages are all worthy features.
"Maybe the real question behind this is whether I can live without a CD player."
I noticed an interesting factoid on an audio trade news blog yesterday, to the effect that upwards of 80% of CDs now sold in the USA are thought to be played only once - ripped to other media and then reproduced from electronic storage.
The figure sounds high, but whether accurate or not, we seem to have reached a level in audio quality and convenience that renders CD players much less important.
In any event, my CD player is not improved by routing it through my DAC, and I almost never use mine anymore (esp. since discovering the Theater View mode in JRiver Media 15!).
Other issues aside, the simple fact is that it's now easier to extract bit-perfect (e.g.,amplitude perfect) data away from the EMI/RFI nightmare known as a PC box, with advanced clocking to eliminate virtually ALL jitter in the time domain.
If you need multiple I/O options, suggest you also consider the Antelope Zodiac Plus as a design that includes world-class clock, DAC and analog stages. It seems to make sense that eliminating extra cabling and boxes, and positioning of the clock as close as possible to the DAC stages are all worthy features.