what are the Best Direct to amps Digital Players ?

@ Edorr, Hi, Its good to hear from you, The Ayon 2s has volume control, the unit is quite nice, however, the reason of the hunt for another player is during break-in the player sounded great, after 450 hours the sound became forward, roll A front and center!, I have been told alot, but I do not know if eanything can change that sound, I bought the a/c power cable, I cannot use it on the ayon untill I get my amp back from krell, then there is talk of changing the stock tubes to $1,200.00 for 4 nos 1980 reflector Dr 6h30 tubes that will better the sound, I do not believe they can change the forward sound?, then there is resonance control where I basically am an proclaimed expert in, LOL!, the resonance tunning could be the fix, I have to buy the lame devices they have for sale these days to try to accomplish this, the old days, polycrystal products was all you needed!,, I was kidding on the Dcs, I have been told the samething you said about Dcs,, your REf5se is really good, I have read many good things about your pre-amp on the gon,,your plan you have for a pre-amp and cables is what I will do latter when we get more money, it will defiantly take a pre-amp like yours or better, to out perform running direct to amp,,I also own Taralabs, the one cable system, 1- one meter i/c and 6 ft speaker cables thats suppose to go on a second system when we go to rebuild that, had to sale all of it but the cables, to help buy the Tara zero gold i/c!, no regrets as far as the performance goes of the zero gold, the truth is we still miss the second system we once owned! sacrfices!,, I have been asking you about the Esoteric k-03, you have not gave me any feed back on this unit, I have been told the k series is a different animal of a player than the x series of players, I am not sure if I would like the esoteric players?, It is on my audition list thou, wont hurt to listen to one, huh?, they have some esoteric dealers up your way around Atlanta, Ga and in new orleans, LA, meterie, LA. I am still up for whats possible, I will also go digital media later as well, since they are craming that mediam down our throats,saying,, this is the future!, cd-players are dieing,, LOL!, they have a ways before that will happen!, neitherless, I will be ready!,, BTW, Transparent are good cables, nice choice!, Hopeing for more choices out there for a one box intergrated digital player, all ideas are welcome, cheers.

@ Almarg, Hi, thankyou so much for the repost, this is the primary reasons why I do not do two box digital systems,Do you believe useing a high quality one box digital system will yield better sound performances based on what has been said above?,will you loose sound quality with the same signal going thru more cables such as a digital cable?, Do you have some sound opinions for an intergrated digital player with analog or digital volume control, that I may audition?, Is there eanyway that you know of that I can fix a forward sound of a player that I already own?, cheers.

Audiolabyrinth, as always there are tradeoffs.

If the cable connecting a transport and DAC is not both good quality and a good match for the two specific components it can certainly have major adverse effects on the sound. And whether or not it will be a good match depends not only on its intrinsic quality, but also on a complex and mostly unpredictable set of relationships and interactions between its parameters, including length, impedance accuracy, shielding effectiveness, shield resistance, propagation velocity, etc., and the technical characteristics of what it is connecting, including signal risetimes and falltimes, impedance accuracy, jitter rejection capability, ground loop susceptibility, etc.

On the other hand, combining the transport and DAC into an integrated player can certainly have its downsides as well. Perhaps the most significant potential downside is coupling of electrical noise from the transport mechanism into the D/A converter circuit, where it can cause jitter, and also into analog circuitry.

Steve Nugent of Empirical Audio, who authored the article I linked to, and also posted earlier in this thread as "Audioengr," has far more experience that is relevant to your questions than I do. I see no reason to doubt his opinions on these matters, and so I suspect that in general, in the price range you seem to be considering, a two-box setup would be the preferable alternative. PROVIDED that a cable that is a good match for the particular components is used, and given the unpredictability of many of the technical factors I listed above significant experimentation may be necessary to find the best match. And given all of those technical factors, involving the components as well as the cable, I would not assume that higher cable price necessarily implies greater likelihood of being the best match.

As far as fixing excessively forward sound is concerned, assuming that you are referring to your Ayon player the only suggestion that occurs to me is the obvious one of tube rolling.

Regards,
-- Al

@ Almarg, It is so nice to talk to a engineer, I love it, you and my friend Edorr are awsome!, both of you gentlemen have done me well here with digital, I have spoken to steven I thought in the forums, He always signed off with Audioengr and EmPirical Audio as you said, I give him a chime and see what he may say, thankyou for the two wonderful well said post here!

@ Audioengr, Steve Nugent, Hi, If you are out there, I need some help with digital, thankyou.