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Audiophile Changer: Cool or Hopeless Compromise?

Hello again everyone. It is great to be back to this site. Having owned and sold a Levinson 31 (sounded fine but didn't REALLY do it for me) I am finally going back to analogue and perhaps, a SONY SCD-1.

For general every day listening of my 2-300 CDs, however, it would be wonderfully convenient to have them in a changer. Is anyone taking a digital output from one of these things and running it through an external D/A, for example an ARC DAC-1 or DAC2 with decent results? Which changer transport is the best? CD or DVD/multi? And can someone please explain "upsampling"? In my experience, I have never really been transported by anything digital. I am waiting to be converted but in the mean time, would just love to conveniently enjoy a few hundred CDs without getting a migraine or thinking that reading a magazine or watching cable would be more satisfying. Thanks for you ideas and advice. Happy holidays to everyone.
cwlondon
zaikesman
3,017 posts
 
Although I presume you are talking about a "jukebox"-type rather than a 5-disc changer like mine, I can recommend using a Monarchy Audio DIP in between, as I do with my Adcom GCD-700 changer and Theta DSPro Basic IIIa DAC. It seems to largely ameliorate the most glaring shortcomings of a low-budget transport when used with a good digital interconnect (mine is Cardas Lightning). I'm able to run a S/PDIF output from the Adcom, but you may have to use a Toslink into the DIP, then take coax or balanced out to the DAC.
cwlondon OP
1,210 posts
 
Thank you everyone. I am talking about a "jukebox" type set up -- the 5 disc changers don't really help me. More specific advice on 100 + changers would be most helpful, as would any explanations/suggstions on upsampling.
sedond
1,387 posts
 
cw, any jukebox cd-player w/digital outputs can *still* be used w/an art di/o dac; i still recommend this. search di/o or dio on a-gon and audio asylum's digital forum for more info about it...

doug s.

kthomas
911 posts
 
I use the Sony CDP-555ES 300-disc (now 400) changers as transports into my DAC (actually the Lexicon MC-12). I'm very satisfied with the performance, though I'm sure I'm not getting the last ounce of performance. I have a single-CD transport for when I'm "serious", but I just love being able to put on the random play with a wide variety of music in the changer - it's like having my own commercial-free radio station. I've got three of the changers so it's a long time before the "playlist" starts repeating itself. I make copies of each CD so I don't lose access to the original for playing when I'm "serious" or in my car changer, as well as to guard against wear of being mechanically handled by the changer. In any case, I think the Sony ES changers are the way to go. -Kirk
ehider
286 posts
 
To everyone reading this thread: The Aiwa 5 disc changer that Sugarbrie and I are recommending is sonically equivalent to the Wadia transport, if used with the optical out into a dac with 24 bit sigma delta D/A converters.

This Aiwa "engineering anomaly" is in a COMPLETE DIFFERENT CATEGORY as compared to ANYTHING available by other Japanese manufacturers (remember, the Aiwa sounds as good as the Wadia!). Again, I know that this sounds like an exaggeration, but this is the hard cold truth.
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