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Newbie question on digital source.

I am totally new to hifi world. I am gradually building my system. I bought the NHT 3.3 speakers and a Aragon 8008 MkII amp. I am searching a preamp which I got a lot of recommendations.

Now for digital source, a friend recommend me the Sony DVP-S7000, which is cheap for used. But seems no one is using it in their hifi system. I am thinking about the Perpetual P3A to be used as DAC. But seems I still need to spend some money on a good CD player as transport. I have a technical question regarding this:

Does CD transport matter? My understanding is that, evey the cheapest DVD player has a coax or optical (toslink) output and send PCM signal which is pure digital to DAC. So why I need to spend a lot of money on CD transport?

Could you guys recommend some reliable used CD players or CD/DAC combination? I am thinking about DVD player with optical output and a P3A DAC. Is it good enough to match my system? My budget is up to $500.

Thanks,
Roy
roy2001
roy2001 OP
32 posts
 
Ejliu,

That's a interesting approach. If you already have a PC, then I believe a 200GB HD is definitely cheaper than a good CD transport. Plus, every CD/DVD ROM today have a direct digital output, I will try to connect it directly to my receiver as PCM source to see what will happen :) All I need is to have a ATX power supply to connect to it. If it can function as a transport, wow! I have a bunch of CD writers.

But I would like to get the answer from technical point of view. From optical or coax output, all the signal should be the same. Ipy mentioned the timing issue. But as an electical engineer (sorry I only play with IC, not tubes), I can hardly believe that.

Thanks.
Roy
audio_buff
38 posts
 
Try the Birdland Audio Odean (DAC $998 new, $500 used) with volume control. You can go straight to and amp with it.

Amazing sounding DAC and you skip the preamp all together.

If you want a preamp, try the Bel Canto Pre1 with DAC1 built in. You could find it for $1500 used.
ejliu
109 posts
 
Roy2001,

Going from the digital output of the CD-ROM is probably fairly jittery. I was thinking going from the HD through to a high quality sound card with a coaxial digital output. You might even find a Pro version with balanced AES/ebu digital output. Although you have to figure out how to do a remote with the PC.

There are a lot of SW out there now you can use to index your music collection. They are usually designed for MP3 but usually support WAV format as well.

Hard drive is a much better digital source compare to on-the-fly data correction of CD/DVD players.

Since you are looking for preamp as well, you can actually consider doing the entire thing in digital domain. There are plenty of DAC out there with good volumne control.
roy2001 OP
32 posts
 
UPDATE:

System is singing: Generic DVD player -> Theta Basic II DAC -> ARC LS-15 tube pre -> Aragon 8008 -> NHT 3.3.

Sound is warm and laid back, no forward and bright at all (some guys complain about NHT speakers).

I might settle down on SONY S7000 DVD player as transport now and save for a good SACD/DVD-A player next year.

Thanks.
Roy
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