Need advice on how to dip a toe into digital

Dipping your toe won't get comparable sound quality to your current CD player or vinyl playback system.

Get the newer ARC CD9 with the built in digital inputs and match it to an Apple Mini or laptop using Pure Music or equivalent software. The downside is you won't have DSD playback.

As Grace Slick so eloquently stated, "either go away or go all the way in".

Gz... and others, thank you very much for your suggestions. I will read them a couple of times and see what I can do. Also, totally unaware of audiophile grade redbook. Where can I source such CDs and how do you know that it's audiophile grade? As I've posted elsewhere, on rare occasion I have some across some redbook CDs that are outstanding. My latest discovery is Michael Buble (Reprise).

Onhwy... excellent quote!! Btw, the newer ARC CD-9 retails for about $13K. Too steep a dive for now. I'd rather switch out my ARC VS-115 for the new ARC REF 150, the latter being a great match for my REF 5 SE. But that's ok. If you're really digitally crazy, ARC recently introduced the REF DAC for the bargain price of $16K.

Bifwynne To me, any CD that is not an SACD is a redbook CD. I don’t know if that is 100% technically correct, but that’s the way I think of it. When I referred to “audiophile redbook” I was thinking of CDs that are labeled with such monikers as Gold CD, HDCD, K2HD, XRCD, XRCD2, XRCD24, UltraHD, Ultradisc, and DXD. I believe all of these are PCM format which is indicative of redbook (as opposed to SACD which is DSD format). Playback of XRCD and the others I’ve mentioned does not require an SACD player; any CD player will do. Presumably CDs that carry these audiophile monikers are superior in sonics to mass market CDs because they are said to employ better mastering and/or manufacturing techniques. FIM (First Impression Music) immediately comes to mind as an example of a record label that specializes in producing such audiophile redbook CDs. The websites of online retailers Acoustic Sounds, Music Direct, and Elusive Disc are three that I know of which put a focus on audiophile redbook CDs. In my experience anything that I’ve heard which carries the FIM label is about as good as it gets on redbook CD. Unfortunately, the price is also about as high as it gets!

Cool. Thanks again GZ... I'll check out the web sites you listed and check out the offerings....and prices.

Maybe something like a used Bryston BDP1 or BDP2 wouldn't be a bad option. Good reviews from a sonic perspective and relatively easy to use versus other options, and I've heard Bryston provides very good support if you have any questions/problems.

As far as good redbook recordings, just about anything from MA Recordings sounds very good and some very interesting and different music (Sera Una Noche, etc.). I have also found many ECM recordings to sound very good as well, and to my ears both of these rival the higher-rez recordings I have. It's also worth noting any digital recording is only as good as the transfer process, so it's possible a redbook CD could even sound better than its 24/196 or SACD counterpart if they screw up the transfer on the latter. Point is, redbook can sound damn good if done right -- you just know where to look. I second the Music Direct and XRCD recommendations as well.

Best of luck with all this, and let us know what you end up doing and how it sounds.