Use a gDVD/CD player as transport with a good DAC?

Great everyone. Thanks for your help. I guess this was not a silver bullet. I am looking for one so if you have one let me know. In the meantime, I will continue my chase for perfect reproduction looking for used Theta and EAD gear. I certainly believe myself, as someone above said - the Transport is much more important than the DAC. I just sold a Rega CD player that I tried with the Bel Canto. Clearly was some improvement, but a $ 800 player with a $ 1500 transport was the wrong balance. Should have been a $ 1500 transport with an $ 800 DAC. Thanks everyone.

excuse my poor english : i'm a french guy from Paris, and I follow very frequently this forum, because a lot of french products as audio aero are much more described and tested than here in france.

I also do wholly agree with the hifi farm point of view : I will quickly describe my last experience in this domain.

I've been, three weeks ago, in a store in the east of France, in order to have a listening to some french Apertura loudpseakers. I brought with me my LINN CD Ikemi player, in order to test several configurations based on this player : alone and connected to an external DAC, in oder to test the capability and tha quality of the Ikemi as a stand alone drive.

I didn't bring my amplfier, because it's a very heavy one : Cayin 500 vacuum tube model. The amplifier proposed by the store was AYRE preamp + power apmlifier, about 12.000 us$ !!!

the first listening was made using my Ikemi + Ayre preamp + Ayre power amp + Apertura loudspeakers. I will not review these speakers here, but I will give you my feeling about the Ikemi, and more generally, the improvement that can be heard by replacing step by step the source.

The LINN Ikemi has the reputation to be a rather good CD player, but a little bit too "neutral", with not so many life, and a little bit too harsh in the highs.

We did then connect the Ikemi to a GOLDMUND SRDA2 D/A converter : the improvement was obvious, with a much more 'analog like' presentation, more soundstage, more air between the performers, more 'weight' behind the notes, a less digital global sound.

But the face of the owner of the store did clearly show that he wasn't actually happy by what he was listening. He asked me the permission to replace the LINN Ikemi by the Goldmund CD/DVD EasyLine transport.

At this step, I didn't believe what I was listening to : the improvement was HUGE, and in the right direction, only by replacing the Ikemi (used as a drive) by the Goldmund CD/DVD drive (both connected to the same Goldmund SRDA2 D/A converter). It was as if the previous improvement (adding the Goldmund converter) was multiplied by TEN. I was hearing real voices in front of me, real life, strings and so on (and all that with speakers that were not entirely burned-in : 100 hours only when they require about 5-600 hours of burn-in).

Since this listening test, I've totally changed my mind : I thought that I could be able, before, to keep my Ikemi as a drive, and add a better D/A converter, but now I'm on my way to sell my Ikemi. I will wait that Goldmund releases, in the newt weeks, a universal CD/DVD-V/SACD/DVD-a player. The store's owner told me that little by little, he will give-up the selling of 'pure' CD player and will prefer to sell CD-DVD drive connected to goof quality converters. He explained me also that using cheap DVD players is not so good, because, such kind of players contain very often cheap 'alimentations à découpage'. I don't know the english translation, but it the same kind of power suppplies than those used by Linn in their Klimax power amp of even in their Ikemi CD player (even if, of course, LINN's such power supplies are much better thatn the one used, for instance, in the Pioneer universal 747 DVD player)......

for your information, the mechanism used in the Goldmund EsayLine CD/DVD player is the ...... Pioneer 747 mechanism.... but entirely improved, and with a LOT of power supplies and regulations.......

A question for JC Audio and Hi Fi Farm- Did you try any DAC's with upsampling or re-clocking (re-sampling)?

There's a reason I ask. From the basics I know of DVD/CP players and transports, the digital output contains data with embedded clock. If the sound is bad then either the data is wrong (which doesn't seem likely) or the embedded clock has jitter (very likely). I know from my experience testing DAC's that jitter on the clock will definately affect the DAC's output, no matter how good the DAC. So my conclusion would be that a DAC with built-in PLL for re-clocking should clean up the jitter and the sound should be pretty good.

Of course, my engineering experience is pretty far removed from the world of high-end audio. That's why I value your expertise and experience. Also, I'm looking for a new CD player and wouldn't mind using my DVD as a transport if a good DAC would do the trick.

I maintain after trying many transports. Many of the differences we heard were with the transports with better power supplies. The DAC I use is the DAC 5 Signature from Audionote. At $49,500 it is awesome. As good as it is I hear huge differences when I move up the line in transports. As an example: AN makes a $999 transport which is much better than using a cd player or DVD players digital out. But if I move up the CDT-1 which is the same transport but with a larger power supply, Black Gate caps etc. the difference in the amount of information heard is unbelievable. If I move up another level with even better power supply etc. the sound isnoticeably improved again. I maintain that using a good transport makes bigger differences than moving up the same amount of money in DAC's. We have done it here many times. In fact a combination of a $2950 transport with a $1500 DAC sounds better than a $1000 transport with a $5000 DAC. We ahve done this shootout many times and the results are always the same. Every customer who has been in on the shoot outs has agreed. I would also say that if you are using a player or DVD you have never REALLY heard what your DAC is capable of.

Jcaudio,

Although I may agree with you that the transport does make a significant difference, your shootout in which you state "In fact a combination of a $2950 transport with a $1500 DAC sounds better than a $1000 transport with a $5000 DAC" is not a robust or valid enough test to prove anything as you are using two different DACs and two different transports. There is no constant that provides for a basis of comparison here, which means you are comparing apples and oranges. Although you may still be right, you cannot state that your shootout proves anything because there are too many variables(i.e. difference in performance between the two transports and DACs, the compatibility differences between each transport and DAC, the compatibility of all the units with whatever digital cable your're using, etc.). Given all those variables I could easily devise a shootout that would show just the opposite and state that DACs make a bigger difference than transports.

With regard to Dcaudio's initial question, although I currently use a transport/DAC combo if I were doing it again I'd probably go a different route and get a decent mid-level player(like a Sony NS500) and have it heavily modified by someone like Ric Schultz(www.tweakaudio.com--see this site for more thoughts on this issue), Dan Wright, Stan Warren, etc. This way you avoid the whole jitter/interaction issue and you also don't have to buy and insert another cable into your system, and it will probably end up costing the same or even less than buying a separate transport and DAC. Of course you lose the flexibility of being able to upgrade the transport or DAC, but with the evolving new formats and universal players on the way you'll probably want to completely overhaul your source within the next couple years anyway. Best of luck.

Tim