I guess the answer might just be "maybe". My gut feeling, based on experience, is that in the under $1500 U.S. price range, a DVD player is definitely the way to go, above that I can't really comment. I really wonder how many people are doing "serious" comparisons of DVD to CD only sound in that under $1500 price range. I sold an Arcam Alpha 8SE about 7 months ago because my RCA 5223P DVD player was the equal of it, if not downright better. I'm not going to say that all the RCA players are great because I haven't heard all of them, and they have changed their newer models. But over on Audioasylum, there are guys who are very strong proponents of the Samsung 709 DVD player (a model a few years old like my RCA, and their praise is limited to the 709 only, not the other Samsung players) who say its performance betters the Arcam Alpha 9, a pretty highly thought of CD player. RCA, Samsung? Not exactly high end names. The other great advantage of a combined DVD/CD player is that when you tweak it (power cords, damping, isolation etc.), you get better performance in both domains, audio and video, which is pretty appealing to a guy like me who's cheap!
dvd vs cd?
I'm upgrading my system and would like to use a dvd player for audio.I've built a pretty decent setup and would hate to compromise quality here. But then again if i could get a dvd player that sounds great ,that would save me 5-6oo$. Dvd players i've thought about are pioneer elite dv37. Cd players are the cal audio and cambridge d500. Thanks for the suggestions.