Help me with a digital Font end

Here's what I'd do, for what it's worth. The Cambridge should make a very good transport, so I'd recommend an Electronic Visionary Systems Millennium DAC II($1050, www.tweakaudio.com) that will be very tough to match for any used $1k CDP. You can try it for 30 days and if it doesn't blow you away just return it.

Since music is the priority in this system I'd get an Adcom GFA-750 that has a Home Theater pass-through feature that will allow it to blend seamlessly with your pre/pro. This way you can use your current pre/pro for surround processing, but for more critical 2-channel listening the 750 is the only preamp in the system. Any used pre/pro you pick up will likely not have the latest processing capabilities and will certainly not match the 750's performance in stereo.

So this way you get all new equipment(I'm pretty leary of buying used CDPs especially) with true high-end 2-channel performance, and you can continue to use your current equipment and don't have to worry about selling it. Anyway, that's what I'd do. Hope this was helpful and best of luck.

Tim

In answer to your question...NO. I had the opportunity to compare a DC-1 with a couple other pre/pros that I would not put in the same league sonically as the GFP-750, and the DC-1 unanymously came in dead last even in that comparison(it was a blind test by the way). If you're serious about 2-channel do not get the DC(does anyone know if the DC-2 digitizes all analog inputs like the DC-1?).

Basically with a pre/pro you're sending a very delicate, low-level signal through an electronic obstacle course that is very difficult to shield the signal from(I'm not sure but my guess is that in general the power supplies are better and less strained in a good stereo preamp than in a pre/pro, which if true would also make a big difference in performance). There are some pre/pros in the $6k realm I've heard that do a respectable job for stereo listening, but nothing in your price range is going to come close to the performance of a preamp at the level of the GFP-750, at least in my experience. In my opinion(again, for what it's worth) the preamp is too crucial to the performance of a system to make a compromise here. If you can accomodate another box in your system I strongly recommend you at least try a good stereo preamp with an HT pass-through in your system. Best of luck.

Tim

Sorry if I'm being repetitive here, but the Adcom GFA-750 is widely considered to be an outstanding stereo preamp and it offers an HT pass-through. Very dynamic and transparent. Unless you're looking for tubes I think this one will be tough to beat, and you can get one new for a street price of around $1200(used for around $750 although I wouldn't recommend it) and not have to worry about buying a used preamp. Plus you can probably demo it in your system to see if it works for you before you buy it.

Also in the solid state realm is the McCormack RLD-1 which also has the pass-through feature and is a little more tube-like than the GFA-750. Levinson/Proceed offers a pass-through but I don't know if you could hit your price target even with a used unit. Without the pass-through I'd consider something used from Pass Labs or maybe the Musical Fidelity A3CR.

On the tube side you can find stereo preamps with pass-throughs from Sonic Frontiers, Rogue, BAT, Audio Research, Conrad-Johnson, PSE, VAC, and probably a few others. My top recommendation would be the Adcom for performance, value, and ease of use in an HT application. Hope this helps and best of luck.

Tim(the other Tim)