Good cd player and a great DAC or great cd player?

Bel Canto DAC2 vs. Ikemi
First we set off to decide which we preferred, the Ikemi or the Bel Canto DAC2. We started with Tori Amos’s “Under the Pick.” Our first thought was the Bel Canto kicks the Ikemi’s a**. Then we sat down for some serious listening. We used Diana Krall’s “Love Scenes,” Shawn Colvin’s “A Few Small Repairs” and a Puccini opera. We thought the Bel Canto was deeper, more transparent, and far more detailed. There was more air. The Ikemi was more intimate and smoother. With the Ikemi, it sounds like Diana Krall is playing in your living room, with the Bel Canto in a small club. Where the Bel Canto really stood out was in creating a sense of space. The cymbals rang out longer, the music echoed as if in a large space. The Ikemi was much flatter. If you haven’t figured it out already, we’re keeping the Bel Canto. At a third of the price, it’s an amazing deal.

Transport
The short of it is, the transport matters. We may not have been able to tell the difference between the DVD player and the carousel, but we had no problem telling the Ikemi from the DVD player. We used Tori Amos’s “Under the Pick” and Indigo Girls self titled album (two copies of each). Within just 2 or 3 A/B’s with each, the difference was easily apparent. The Ikemi was more full bodied and detailed. I was hoping it wouldn’t be the case. Now I have to shop for a transport. Any suggestions? We can’t afford the Ikemi for a transport. :)

Just so you know, before you even think about auditioning the Linn Ikemi(assuming its new), it needs to be on and playing a signal for a minimum of about 200 hours(about a week of it playing constantly)before you can make any critical evaluation.

Also did you have a way to make sure the output from the speakers between the 2 units was within 1 db?? If not you may or may not be giving each piece a fair trial.

As for telling the difference between a cd player and a dvd player, its very obvious. Many DVD players sound "sucked out" in the midrange when playing cd's due to the calibration of the laser(s).

Thanks for your thoughts.

The Ikemi is a dealer demo, which I have been assured is well broken in. And we used a sound level meter to make sure the volume was almost identical. I'd say it was a fair test.

As for the not being able to tell the differences between the DVD player and the CD player when used as a transport, as I understand it, what that says it that the clock slew on both was very similar. It seems obvious that the Ikemi did a far superior job of sending the clock information to the DAC. Otherwise, digital data is digital data. As I have been assured by a number of engineers, the difference between transports is mainly their mechanical engineering of the clock (a very difficult feat that accounts for a vast difference between transports). “Jitter” as described by most audiophiles is a slightly different concept in engineering.

Joy Elyse, thanks very much for sharing your impressions here. Your experience is of great value to me.

I went to Audio Asylum and found a good number of suggestions with a search for "CD transport" in the Digital Drive forum. One of them was a machine I know : the discontinued Parasound C/BD 2000, which is UHF magazine's reference. It's a belt-drive machine made by CEC. I've heard it at four shows now.

Another transport I thought was very good for the money was the Cambridge DiscMagic. I think it may still be available by special order.

The TEAC VRDS transports have a considerable number of fans. I have no idea of pricing on these.

You might try searching the archives here for more suggestions, or starting a thread on the subject.

I just thought I'd post my "final" system. I decided to go with the new Denon 5900 universal player as my transport. I just brought it home yesterday, and I am in love.

At a trusted adviser urging I tried the Sony DVD99ES first, and was totally unimpressed. The ways in which the 5900 is better the the 999 are innumerable. As a transport, the 999 was better than my a carousel, but the difference was subtle. As a DVD player, it was totally unremarkable. It has the chroma bug, and the picture is not what it should be for a flagship. I found SACD almost unlistenable.

Now the 5900: Audiowise, I'm a convert to SACD. I had never understood the fuss before. The Bel Canto DAC2 is wonderful, but it's not SACD. I think the differences are well documented, so I won't reiterate them here. The 5900 also makes a great transport. On a A/B test, it was immediately obvious how much better the Denon sounded than my Sony carousel. My DAC2 still sounds significantly better than the unit's internal DAC, but that is to be expected. I listened to every CD player in the Boston area under $6k before deciding on the DAC2. Memory is a funny thing, but I think the 5900 may even make a better transport than the Linn Ikemi, but I no longer have the Linn here to compare. We don't even plan to mod the unit and get the Superclock 2, because we are happy just as it is. We're afraid to screw it up.

And the picture, it's amazing. I've never seen anything like it. And for those of us who don't have HDTV's yet, the interlaced picture is superb.

No doubt the unit is pricey, going between $1600 and $2000, but I spent a total of $2550 for the Bel Canto and the Denon (both new), which is still $1000 less than a new Ikemi would have cost me, and I have a great DVD player too.

It took a lot of research and dealer trips, but I am now thrilled with my system exactly as it.

Joy Elyse