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Jump in now or wait?

Very close to purchasing a Benchmark DAC1 usb to use pc as sole source. Music is saved in apple lossless w/error correction in Itunes. Is it worth buying now (will need to buy new as these units seem to be rarely available used) or is the pace of technology changing/new products coming to market such that I should wait 6 months or so? Have to believe a number of fellow agoners are wrestling with this same issue.

Relatedly, is the DAC1 going to get me sonically where a nice CD player would (thinking of used Ayre CX-7e).

Thanks for any input.
dokosan

Showing 4 responses by herman

herman
2,277 posts
 
Wireless is correct. The PC as a source, the whole arena of digital playback for that matter, is mature enough that there will be no huge improvements. This is not first generation stuff, it is a variation on technology that has existed for over 20 years. If you wait for a "wide variety of high resolution downloads" you may be waiting forever. We've had SACD and DVD-A for years and there still isn't what I would call a wide variety available on those two.

Get in now.
herman
2,277 posts
 
Steve, I've never heard the mention of error correction on playback. Are you saying my computer might not be reading the hard drive correctly and needs error correction?
herman
2,277 posts
 
I still don't get it. I'm not saying you are wrong, but I've been involved with electronics and computers for a long time and this is news to me. Perhaps I don't understand what you mean but it seems to me that if computers generated errors reading from memory and transferring the data nothing would ever work.
herman
2,277 posts
 
Steve, I see what you are saying. Once it's pushed down the pipe no telling what can happen to it.

Tiger, while it would be nice to believe that Blu-Ray audio would be embraced, history tells us otherwise. SACD and DVD-A are effectively dead.. The average music buyer doesn't care about those so why would they convert to Blu-Ray? Pay per bit may dampen some internet services but I think that it will ultimately win the war and little plastic discs will go away.
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