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New CD player, Transport or DAC?

Finally got my system where it sounds great to me. Have Primaluna power amp and preamp. Power amp now has KT 120 power tubes. Have a great turntable and a pair of Klipsch Cornwall's with Crites crossovers and a pair of Dynaudio 1.1 monitors. Some room treatment now and working on cables. My weak piece now is my CD player. Older CDs still sound bad. Newer well recorded CDs sound great. I have been using a Marantz 6005 CD player. I wanted to make some of my rare albums into CDs so I dragged out a 15 year old at least Pioneer cd recorder. Hooked it up and my wife and I did an a-b between it and the Maranrz and neither of us could tell a difference. So in 15 years CD players haven't improved or are they both mid fi CD players? I do have an Emotiva dac and some things sound marginally better through it and some things sound worse. Long story to get to my point. Should I invest in s high dollar CD player (I have probably 6000 CDs) or a high quality DAC or a DAC and transport. Most of my listening is done on CDs. My albums sound great through my system but I don't have room to replace CDs with lps. Any suggestions of brands to look at or things to consider? Thanks for any help.
dylanfan

Showing 2 responses by lowrider57

lowrider57's avatar
lowrider57
5,418 posts
 
Celtic66,
A music server is the ultimate way to go. But, before he can make that move, he still has the problem of a CDP playing back with a high jitter rate.

Dylanfan, In your other thread you asked the same question, "new CD or DAC?" First, forget about the Emotiva; it will never sound close to analogue. Second, $3000 will get you a very good "close to analogue" sounding CDP such as a used Ayre or ARC. Is it worth it, probably not, since you will have spent all your money and eventually you will want a DAC in your system.

Start researching DACs. I see your Marantz 6005 has a digital coax output, get a high quality coax cable for input to the DAC.

lowrider57's avatar
lowrider57
5,418 posts
 
Mikirob is right. You can go for a mid-priced DAC and add in a reclocker for smoother playback. You could then keep your Marantz as the transport (which is the weak link).
The higher up the DAC chain you go, the better the master clock is. (jitter control).
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