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How Important Is The Cdp?


Hi,

My current set-up includes PSB Stratus Mini's speakers, Cambridge AZUR 540 A and a Toshiba 3950 DVD which i use for cd playback only. I know this is a mismatch of gear, but i originally hadnly planned on using this equipment with each other, then shortly after had some money troubles so im stuck with this gear for awhile.

My system sounds OK at times, its somewhat musical but alot of the time the sound is jsut too harsh and fatuiging- guitar harmonics are especially grainy and shimmery, vocals seem to be yelling at me way too much and overall the sound seems unfocused and veiled.

My room is pretty small, about 10x10 with an open closet and Jon Risch acoustic treatments directly behind each speaker, side walls arent really treated at all. I know my room isnt the greatest, but somehow i get the sence that the room isnt the main problem im having, sure it could use alot of improvement but the bad sound seems to be coming directly from the speakers.

Im sort of confused on what is causing the harshness, some people say its my cdp, others say my amp and then theres a few who think its my speakers interacting with the room.

This brings me to the question on how important is the cdp? Ive heard many people say that the cdp makes very little to no difference and wont tame the harshness i speaker of. Others say the source is most important and that what im hearing is my speakers producing the crappy sound my cdp is feeding them.

Would a better cdp, or say a 1000$ DAC improve my system to the point where the harshness i speaker of will be mostly eliminated, or will it just show more weaknesses of my amp. Or will a better cdp just make my system only slighty less harsh by only taming some of the digital glare of cdp's?

What do you guys think? cdp causing the harshness, or is it the amp?
dave123456
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
All I'm saying that between $100 CDp and $500 CDp is a large gap in performance but stepping to another $500 up in general is not.
Stepping up by $1000 for the speakers or the amp I think is much more efficient towards the system improvements.

My current CDp $600
Amps(I biamp with Sunfire SRA bottom and VTL MB100 top) $1800 and speakers $2200.
howie
230 posts
 
Making wise decisions are much more important than money spent. It's hard to generalize. I don't believe in price ratios as much I think it generally ends up pretty close to the suggested ratios when most of us have finished building our systems.

If I have a dream system in mind, I believe in obtaining components to build around. If there's a $1000 DAC that you really like (and I think you can get one that won't embarass itself in any system), then it might not be a bad idea to get it and build around it. Of course nobody knows what's going to happen in the future and with technology moving along, perhaps achieving a balance and constantly upgrading rather than establishing cornerstone pieces may be the way to go. Depends on what you want to do.

Marakanetz, you're still talking about price ratios here. Keep in mind that a $500 CDP is 5X the price of a $100CDP whereas a $1000 CDP is only 2X the price of a $500CDP so you should expect the performance leap to be less. However, the same can be said about a $100 speaker vs a $500 one and a $500 speaker vs $1000 speaker. Take $2200 for example (the list price of your speakers). Spending an extra $1000 probably won't buy you as much extra performance as spending $1600 rather than $600 on the source (given that wise choices were made at all price points). Then again, I probably would spend it on amps or speakers if I think my source is good enough, especially since digital technology moves quicker than amps and speakers in general. IMO there are a few sweet spots along the price structure of each component. Speakers and amps tend to be higher in price that's all.
reubent
7,071 posts
 
Dave123456,

If you are curious about the benefits of a quality DAC, there is an inexpensive way to find out if it works for you.

Simply do some homework on DACs, determine the going rate (price) for some popular DACs, buy it, try it, resell it here if you don't think it was a good value. There are some great DACs priced between $350-800 that seem to get a lot of play on this site. It is likely that you could buy one of these (or a couple of different ones), try it and resell it for little or zero loss as long as you keep it in pristine condition and keep the packaging.

Some examples of DACs that get high praise, are inexpensive and resell quickly are:

Scott Nixon DacKit or TubeDac
Ack! DAC
Benchmark

If you do your homework, you should be able to try a DAC with little exposure to depreciation. Heck, how fast can the price drop on a <$500 unit? Some of these DACs are very good and are so popular that you could likely resell in a couple of days.

I hope you find audio nirvana!

Enjoy,

TIC
(Tom In Cincinnati)
gregadd
574 posts
 
I found a listing for the muscial fidelity X-10 V3 $399 tube buffer available mail order from http://www.musicdirect.com
lazarus28
339 posts
 
i cannot, under *any* circumstances agree with gregadd on this one.

all the tube buffer does is further distort the output signal, by design!

if you like the sound of tubes, get a player with a tube output stage or mod your player to have tubes in the output stage. don't run the signal through SECOND output stage just to add the "tubey" sound to it. all you're doing is altering the signal by running it through more pathways.

remember: if adding something into the audio chain (other than maybe an upsampler, which at least has some theoretical benefit) alters the sound audibly, it is degrading the signal. period. the tube buffer cannot improve the signal it gets. it's like adding a pouch of dirt to the spout of your kitchen spigot - you may like the taste of the water that comes out of it - but don't say it's as pure as it was before it got there.
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