Good cd player and a great DAC or great cd player?

Getting a seperate transport and DAC does NOT necessarily mean better sound. And I have found in many instances its not as good. For $2500 you should get a cd player with great out of the box performance. There are a handful of players in the price range. THe Wadia 301 leads the pack in my opinion. And for a few reasons. You can buy a 301 for under $2500 and then down the road spend another $900/$1600 for some basic/reference modifications that will give you better imaging,resolution and detail than pretty much any player at any pricepoint. Ive been a big fan of Wadia, due to their modular upgradeable design philosophy.

But if your going to be spending money on a system worth of about $20k, put most of that investment into the best speakers you can get your hands on as they(along with room treatments)are the most critical part of a quality sound system. After the speakers and room treatments comes the source unit, then amplification, then cabling.

Tobias: Reason why most people state to put most of the money into the speakers is due to the fact that mankind in general has yet to master the physics of sound reproduction. We can store,decode and transmit a signal that is therotically close to perfect in the digital/analogue line level realm, but we cant do this anywhere near close to the same level on the output(speaker/transducers themselves)stage which is what we actually "hear".

Its a well proven fact that the speakers, their placement and the actual room acoustics are the absolute most critical part of ANY system regardless of price. I would rather take a killer set of speakers placed properly in a well set-up room with a minimal money invested in source and amplification from a price point of view then get average sounding speakers with better source and amplification. I personally think that budgetwise anywhere from 50-75% of the money should go into speakers that match up accoustically to the room they will be going into. If your budget is in the real world area of about $5-$10k that would mean investing about $2500-$7500 on the speakers themselves with about $2500-$5000 left over for source,amplification and cabling. I sure as hell know you can get incredible sounding transducers for $2500 no question. And $2500 leaves alot left over for good quality source,amplification and cabling.

Hell if the budget is less than$5k(say $2500 total)I still know that there are real good speakers in the $1250 range. And $1250 is still plenty for a high sound quality source and amplification, still leaving enough for some good cabling. But once again, most of the budget NEEDS to go into the speakers no question. They are the theoretical weak link in the chain.

Well if this plan is for "10 years" then wouldnt the source be the last thing to get regardless?? Is the CD format going to be the frontrunner in 10 years?

Like stated, the absolute biggest contributor(or detractor)to sound quality is the speakers and the room environment they are in.

Just so you know, before you even think about auditioning the Linn Ikemi(assuming its new), it needs to be on and playing a signal for a minimum of about 200 hours(about a week of it playing constantly)before you can make any critical evaluation.

Also did you have a way to make sure the output from the speakers between the 2 units was within 1 db?? If not you may or may not be giving each piece a fair trial.

As for telling the difference between a cd player and a dvd player, its very obvious. Many DVD players sound "sucked out" in the midrange when playing cd's due to the calibration of the laser(s).