what are the Best Direct to amps Digital Players ?

@ 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.

Audiolabyrinth,

I'm glad I was able to help out. From reading all your posts, I know how much it means to you. After all, what in life could possibly be more important than having a good sounding CD player? Maybe Tara cables and a working kidney. But that's as far as I'll go.