Good CD player vs. Transport and DAC

"IMO all digital sources sound equally good through a quality DAC. Claiming that one digital source sounds different from another is bogus. It's just a bitstream. No need for a Mark Levinson CD transport, just find a $100 cheapie with SPDIF output and only your pocketbook will know the difference."

And here we have it; pure genius.

So from what I'm hearing you say is that the transport doesn't matter in terms of sound, just get a good dac? Not to sound redundant, but I'm using my denon dvd 2900 as a transport and using a musical fidelity v-dacII with an upgraded pangea p-100 power supply for the dac. If I want better digital playback, I should just concentrate on getting a better dac (a dac with asynchronus usb for future expansion into computer audio, I'm thinking, or I suppose I could just use the v-dacII for computer audio if necessary). Also, in terms of upgrading my dac, I have balanced inputs on my pre-amp that I'm not using...

Go to Bel Canto and choose.Can't be beat for the money,cheers,Bob

B_limbo,

"So from what I'm hearing you say is that the transport doesn't matter in terms of sound, just get a good dac?"

Only you can make that decision. I'm willing to bet, though, that you would know the difference. It looks like you are responding to the post above that says nothing matters but the DAC. That person doesn’t know what they're talking about. I don't mean that as an insult, but literally. It happens all the time. People end up in a high end audio store for the first time, or visit a web site like this and have a very typical reaction; they panic is some form. Weather it be the high prices of components or the claims that things like cables can sound different, its so far removed from what they know an audio system to be, their first reaction is to deny the legitimacy of the products in question.

Hears some examples.

"Single-box players all require their own internal DAC circuitry, and that gets expensive if you want good stuff." Ya think? Nothing like stating the obvious.

"Claiming that one digital source sounds different from another is bogus. It's just a bitstream." Really? If that's the case you can just use 128k mp3 files instead of SACD. After all, it is just a bit stream.

"No need for a Mark Levinson CD transport, just find a $100 cheapie with SPDIF output and only your pocketbook will know the difference." That's a guess. (You don't really think that person ever had a ML transport for comparison, do you?)

At this point, you may be asking why so many people are sceptical when it comes to high end audio? For the most part its how the consumer electronics industry markets digital products. They messed up big time with audio. Why do kids want a PS3 over a PS 1 or 2? Better processing power. Why do people want Blu Ray players over DVD players? Better picture quality. Why do people want MP3 players over CD players? More features - NOT better sound quality. An ipod is smaller than a CD player and holds 50,000 songs. Its the equivalent of buying a 10 year old computer and plugging a 2TB hard drive in it a calling it state of the art. Most people would laugh at you.

The reason I went on and on about this, is that it's very easy to get sucked into the features over quality mindset without realizing it.

B_limo, you will get a wide swath of responses to your inquiry. You have captured the essence of the viewpoint of some when you say, "So from what I'm hearing you say is that the transport doesn't matter in terms of sound, just get a good dac? Not to sound redundant, but I'm using my denon dvd 2900 as a transport and using a musical fidelity v-dacII with an upgraded pangea p-100 power supply for the dac. If I want better digital playback, I should just concentrate on getting a better dac..."

You couldn't get much worse advice when it comes to Redbook playback. The transport is of paramount importance, as is the digital cable, as is the power cord for each (transport/DAC). Every element of the signal, from reading to conversion, is profoundly important to achieve a digital playback which has some semblance of extreme beauty.

Put a crap transport in front of whatever DAC you wish, be it a $500 or $10K DAC, and the result will suffer. Put a beautiful player/transport feeding whatever DAC you wish, be it a $500 or $10K DAC, and the result will improve markedly.

It's a LoFi move to chintz on the transport. Take this advice from someone who has not only used the Denon 2900 with a variety of DACs, but has also used transports/players as transports from under $1K to $10K. One of the best ways to destroy digital sound is by using a low quality transport. Most people can only offer opinion in this matter. I offer experience, as I have compared directly low end players as transports to $10K players for the same function into DACs. It was a frustrating but unavoidable conclusion that the transport quality is absolutely essential to attain very high performance in Redbook playback.

Zd542 is absolutely correct; anyone who says the transport doesn't matter is wretchedly wrong in this matter.