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Need advice! Do I upgrade DAC or buy a new player?

Hello all...I have been heavily back into analog for the past 3 years however I have come to cycle in my audiophilia that I am listening to a lot of CDs again.  I have about 300 mostly from '98 and back.  Don't get me wrong I am vinyl through and through but there are a lot of CDs I have that are shall we say casual listeners.  I have no desire to replace them with there vinyl brethren but I know many are very, very good and well recorded.  My dilemma is this I have a fairly decent system and a CD player that I think is "ok" but I want better sound and seeing as there are 10-30k CD players there must be a better option problem is I am not gonna spend that kind of money (even if I could).  So the question is do I upgrade my DAC and use my current CD Player or do I just get a "better" player?  Oh here are the system dynamics:  I use an Audio Research SP20 pre amp mated to a Bryston  14B SST2 speakers are Def Tec 7000sc's I don't think my vinyl preamps matter nor do the tables so I will omit them....
The CD player is an Emotiva ERC-3, I like the player but want a better soundstage a bit deeper and dare I say more analog sounding.  I am a huge soundstage freak so if a sacrifice were to be made it would not be there.  I am running balanced out of the Emotiva.  I don't need SACD but ok if it's there.  I don't have a problem with pre-owned I don't need a DAC that downloads FLAC or can be hooked up to any other sources other than the Emotiva being used as a transport.  As for budget I would say $1,500 to $2,000 if it makes sense.  Any advice would help thanks!  
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Showing 1 response by audioengr

audioengr
3,282 posts
 

Frankly, I would not waste any real money on a Transport, only on a CD player that you use the analog outs for DSD. I do think you should improve the transport jitter though, by adding a reclocker to the digital cable as well as a better digital cable. The soundstage/imaging problems you are describing are likely jitter related. To get the jitter levels you can get from a $599 Synchro-Mesh reclocker and a $499 Reference BNC cable (20psec), you would need to spend at least $20K on a new Transport IME. You can make the reclocker even better by upgrading the power supply. I would do this first before you consider a new DAC. 30-day money-back, less shipping.

As for the DAC, I can highly recommend changing to a DAC with balanced outputs if you don’t have that already. This will usually give you a lower noise floor and better soundstage as well.

First, just try the new cable and reclocker and see if this does not satisfy you. It also provides galvanic isolation, eliminating a ground-loop that you have now.

BTW, if you also have a home theater with SS processor, I can highly recommend the iFi SPDIF Purifier for $149 driving my Standard BNC S/PDIF cable to reduce jitter for Dolby Digital and DTS.

Steve N.

Empirical Audio

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