CD Player - Dgital Out on Onkyo C-7030


Does anyone know if the spdif output on this CD player by-pass the internal dack on the player? I rarely use it, as the sound is poor compared to CD to Flac files downloaded on my hard drive. I am wondering if the purchase of a CD transport would improve the sound quality of playing CD's. Sometimes I just want to play a CD.

128x128pooch2

Showing 6 responses by soix

Yes, but you’ll need an external DAC to plug it into. The good news is you should hear a marked improvement over what you’re getting now. If you need/want recommendations just share what sound characteristics are most important to you and what improvements you’re looking for along with your budget and if you want new or used and you’ll get a lot of good help here.  Would also help if you could mention the rest of the equipment in your system.

Digital is not like Analog, where paying more for better mechanical build quality gets you better sound. Bits are just bits, whether they come from an older CD player, DVD player or a new $1K transport. 

This is just patently absurd but sadly just par for the course with this guy/troll.

Sounds like you only occasionally listen to CDs?  If that’s the case you might try a Wyred4Sound Remedy Reclocker on sale for $319 to see if that provides a better result on the relative cheap and without having to buy a new transport.
https://wyred4sound.com/products/remedy-reclocker

Just fyi, here are the impressions from another member who added a Remedy to his 6000CDT and thought you might find it interesting…

In my experience the CDs sound more alive now (a more natural-sounding reverb, more definition to the soundstage (instruments are placed left-to-right/front-to-back more realistically)). It was probably the best $400 I’ve spent on my modest system.

If you’ve read anything from Bob Lefsetz about his experiences with streaming and the Dragonfly dac, he raves about the sound being pretty close to the vinyl experience. Since I have a ton of CDs, I didn’t want to give up on the discs, and that’s why I chose to try the Remedy reclocker. Since I’ve tried it, I know I’ll never go back to the usual CD playback. And although I’ve never done a side-by-side comparison with streaming, I’ll bet my system sounds pretty close to at least a modest streaming system.

Congrats!  And thanks for the update.  Of course you can always add a Remedy later if desired as it apparently works well with the 6000CDT.