David99: I have a GCD-700 and had the opposite problem a year or so ago where the fixed outputs would intermittently shorted out. I wasn't entirely thrilled with the overall sound of the 700 anyway (I've had it for 5 years - time for a change), so I chose to use it as a transport and purchased a used DAC. For what its worth, the sound of the combo was pretty poor, and my first thought was of course that the DAC wasn't very good. To test this, I swapped in my Pioneer DVD player (503C) and things sounded great. After going back and forth for a while to ensure the differences weren't simply in my head, I came to the conclusion that the 700 just isn't a very good transport. I'm not sure why the digital output should be as poor as it is, but Adcom apparently didn't design this guy to be a quality transport.
Just some food for thought before you attack the system with an external DAC. That said, there are some affordable external DACs I know of that do have volume controls without remotes (Monarchy comes to mind). Is he averse to getting up and adjusting the volume?
Cheers,
Ken
Just some food for thought before you attack the system with an external DAC. That said, there are some affordable external DACs I know of that do have volume controls without remotes (Monarchy comes to mind). Is he averse to getting up and adjusting the volume?
Cheers,
Ken