How to get into high end digital? (Feeding a DAC)


I am looking primarily at the Schitt Yggdrasil or the Topping D90.
  • How does one feed those?
  • I am assuming any sort of CD transport would output the bit stream?
  • or… they get saved to file and played from some media player into the DACs.

Some example of what is commonly done would be great.

The system currently consists of:
  • TT —> Audio Research PH2
  • An old Nakamichi 5 disk CD player
  • TV
  • Audible Illusions line stage (New tunes on the way, but it still sound OK to me with the old tube in it)
  • Prima Luna (with GoldenLion and TS KT-120 one the way… and I might I’ll get the VTL mono blocks 100w/ch serviced)
  • Vandy 2C and Vandy sub

I also have a Home Theatre pre, which is Roon capable, on the way… So that maybe does some of this for me as well? 

But to be totally honest, the digital side is a bit of mystery to me.
I have always thought we plug in a CD player and the signal comes out. (Maybe with some nuance in DACs, clock jitter, and filtering to separate the higher end from the lower end products.)
holmz

Showing 1 response by audioman58

You could use a computer ,using a Ethernet cable 
then to isolate digital noise there are several good Ethernet hubs 
like uptone audio Ether Regen , and Ethernet cables absolutely make a difference , for I had had the latest Topping which measures great
but musically not that engaging, having very good filtering , regulation and linear power supplies , internal dac chips in the D&A  conversion  for my smaller system the Denafrips pontus-2 
was much better musically . My Bricasti M3 with Streamer board
totally isolated the complete Digital feed ,using Ethernet ,
the digital packet stream is cleaned which digital noise is present
from your modem to router carried noise from the outside , a Ether regen  ,or IS2 signal eliminates the noise before it reaches your streamer . In theBricasti case it’s design eliminates this before converting with filtering ,pre,and post regulation and electrically isolated internally .
The streamer in the same chassis with the dac on a very well designed  unit eliminates extra powercord, and cable even lower noise floor for totally isolated internally and yes I have compared to good separate servers like with Melco ,No added expenses, more and more high end companies are offering  Dacwith streamer module boards .
look at Blusound for $550  that's a great dealforamodest setup , the Bricasti is $6500 retail. But loaded with quality throughout and is modular for future upgrades ,their top model is $16k. My point is quality build , and  design count in musicality. As technology evolves the prices reflect this and are coming down.