Is it worth upgrading a CD player?


I’ve had my Marantz CD6002 for around 14 years and it’s still going strong. I have it connected to an Audiolab M-DAC+ and play via my Rega amp. I’m mostly vinyl but have started to playvmy CD’s more recently and wondered whether upgrading the CD player would be worth it or not, given the fact it’s played via a dedicated DAC. Am I right in thinking there would be little noticeable improvement?

side22olto

Showing 2 responses by carlsbad

My advice is the opposite of @kota1 .  The DAC is the most important part of a CD system.  If you have a DAC you like, then you are really just using the CD player as a CD transport, sending a digital signal to the DAC.

Streaming you are fighting bit losses as large files are sent over the internet.  I don't know for sure, and maybe someone who knows can speak up here, but I think CD players are much closer to "lossless".  If that is the case, there is not much to be gained.  

The key to digital is to get a DAC you like and it sounds like you have.  Once you have that DAC, I would never use the DAC in a cd player.

Jerry

@ghdprentice I think you misunderstood my post.  I meant that a streamer must work hard to deal with dropped bits and upgrading your streamer is key.  I have gone to an Innuos Zenith Mk3.  But I think the CD transport has much less tendancy to drop bits and thus any good solid well designed CD transport should get a good stream of bits to your DAC.  However, I am not sure about that and was hoping someone could confirm that CD transports drop very few bits.

Jerry