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Dedicated CD Transport vs DAC

Greetings,

Just some honest questions...

In your opinion, based on what you have actually experienced....

1)  Which accounts for the most sonic improvement?  A quality dedicated CD Transport or a Quality DAC?

2)  If a person could assign a percentage... by what % did your cd transport improve your sound?  By what % did your new dac improve your sound?

3)  If you honestly gained an improvement in sound... was it like, " Oh my God, I can't believe how great this improvement is " or is it more like, " I can hear an improvement but no wheres nearly commensurate with the increase in price it cost me."

Coming from being highly invested in vinyl playback for the last 50 years... I'm struggling trying to decide how to improve the cd playback side of my system.

Up to this point in time, I've usually found cd playback to oftentimes sound hard, glaring, sterile, two dimensional, etc.

Which in your mind, helps to eliminate the above sound qualities that I dislike?  A new dedicated cd transport or a new dac?

Thanks much for taking the time to reply and help me better understand!

Best wishes,

Don

 

no_regrets

Showing 1 response by bill_peloquin

bill_peloquin's avatar
bill_peloquin
49 posts
 

What I would think is if you already have a high quality external Dac, why pay for another Dac that is probably has some restrictions or at least design/ cost considerations built in with a new CD player.

Transports are very basic to me. Once you get a decent one in the $3000 range you should be all set. The rest of your sound is all in the DAC.

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