Better Upgrade Path? Better CDP or add a DAC?

Yes Jay,
I tend to believe that, however, having a good DAC gives you an advantage to play your computer music. I may also be intrigued by RW comments about Oppo BDP105, but prefer even greater versatility of creating my own DIY media server all HDD, SSD and card-reader based with all possible inputs/outs I need. This way the upgrades to later technology DAC chips or processors will be the most cost efficient.

Both transport and DAC are of great importance . Can't blame you from wanting to stay away from computer and hard drive music . I have all my music on hard drive but rarely listen that way . Oh , and stay away from anything with the Oppo name on it , I've tried a few , complete junk .

That oppo is tempting me also. Jay, if you have wi fi in your home, you could pay $32 for a year of pandora one, and $10 per month for spotify and stream music through the oppo. You'd have access to sooo much music, right there, any time you want and it sounds pretty dang good. The oppo would play your cd's and as a bonus, it's a blu ray player. It seems to have a pretty kick butt dac too. I like external dac's but when you can have it all in one package without compromise, why not?

RLwainwright, I know the Oppo is highly regarded by HT and PC enthusiast which is after-all, it's intended audience. I have yet to hear from a single person who has purchased an Oppo based solely on it's two channel audio prowess, which is what I'm most interested in. Thanks

Marantz SA-8004

Why not look at the best of all worlds - Oppo BDP-105? Great CD/DVD/Bluray player, excellent DACs (ESS Sabre 32), and it will alos allow you to stream from the internet and has network connectivity/playback? For $1,000 it's hard to beat this unit...

-RW-

Jayh31,

what are the other components in your system?

Thanks Marakanetz. Are you of the opinion that cd players are becoming obsolete primarily due to the emergance of PC based music? Thanks again for your input.

Nowdays CD-player more and more becomming obsolete. Having newest technology DAC with all kinds of various inputs will be more practical.
Among those I favor, Lynx HiLo, Mytek DSD102, Grace M903 and Antelope Zodiac+.
Your Bryston player doesn't look any weak compared to the models you've listed.