2. digital
  3. 191570-8843

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 deep_333

deep_333
1,758 posts
 

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?

A manufacturer of a high caliber who knows how to make a top notch sacd/cd transport will also know how to produce a top quality dac. It is their integration of the two and optimization of signal paths, etc that makes it sound immaculate.

You may think that you can do a better job than the high caliber manufacturers... mixing/matching the different transports, dacs and wires made of magicdustium. You may think a lot of things and imagine yourself to be some type of audio master chef/sound master....but, you may not succeed. The regular guy sitting at home just doesn’t have knowledge/expertise on the nitty gritty like the manufacturers do. Nevertheless, some will need to spend tens of thousands before they admit defeat (such failed adventures begin to show up on the marketplace).

 

 

 

More to discover