I think there are some very good DACs in the $1000 - $1500 price range that’d be a nice sonic upgrade from your CD player and allow you to enter the awesome world of streaming. Some ideas would be Soekris 2541, Musician Pegasus, or Gustard X26 just to name a few, but it really depends on your tastes and preferences as to which DAC would be best. To start steaming you could get a Qobuz account and a Lightening to USB adapter from Apple or Lavri and you’d be off and running by plugging your phone/tablet a good DAC like the ones above. Once you start streaming and having worlds of new music — and much of it hi-res — at your fingertips you’ll never look back. Anyway, hope this helps, and best of luck.
Getting with the 21st century, need DAC for streaming
Hi, I guess I’ve been suspiciously dragging my feet on the whole streaming and DAC revolution, but now I am interested as it has been difficult living abroad to continue growing my CD collection lately. I’ve been listening to a Bryston B60 for 22 years, some very nice E16 Audio monitors and "recently" an ERC 2 CD player when my Rega pooped out and I saw the review on Stereophile. I’ve been researching the DAC subject and I’m curious if I might be able to expand my library by simply buying one of the Audioquest DAC and subscribing to Tidal (or others) and use my iPad to stream music through the Bryston, or if it might be better to get a more full featured DAC and use the ERC 2 as a transport and go through the external DAC, although honestly the ERC 2 sounds pretty fantastic as it is. But alas this isn’t all about the CD player, I’m really just curious about a decent intermediate level DAC set up to get me started in this nuance of hifi. I realize there are plenty of sources to research that, but I wanted your opinion on the CD DAC (AD1955) upgrade as well. I’m totally open to getting second hand as well.