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Please Recommend Transport + DAC for $5K total

My current Jolida cdp is growing pretty long in the tooth. I could just replace it with another cdp, but it seems more prudent to go with separate transport and DAC, at this point. Would prefer gear made in N. America. Total expenditure not to exceed 5K. I'm considering Sim Audio Moon 260CD or Bryston BDP-3 as a transport. The thing is, I prefer the option of demoing at home and I haven't (so far) found any vendors offering that option with the Sim Audio piece. As for a DAC, same thing: it has to be something I can try out at home, like a Schiit Yggy or Benchmark DAC2HGC. Can anyone suggest other possibilities, given these parameters? My system: Wells Audio Majestic Integrated, Silverline 17.5 monitors, JD100 cdp. Speaker wire: Audio Art SE. Power cables: Audio Art Statement. IC's: Audioquest Cheetah.  Thanks! 
stuartk

Showing 8 responses by auxinput

auxinput
2,920 posts
 

The Jolida actually makes a very nice transport, if you just want to continue playing CDs.  Or look at a Cambridge CXC if you want a CD only transport to replace the Jolida.

If you want hi-res, you can also look at PS Audio Perfectwave Transport in addition to stuff like the Bryston BDP-3.  Both of these use linear power supplies (better).  With the Bryston, you still need a computer to rip CDs into wav/flac files.

For DAC, I would personally avoid anything with switching power supply, like Benchmark.  I have heard Yggy is good, but needs to be powered on for 24 hours before sounding good.

You can look at LKS MH-DA004.  I'm actually planning on buying this DAC next year.  I've done a lot of R&D with DAC circuits and power supplies over the years and the LKS does almost everything right.  All linear power supplies (even for digital section), Nichicon Gold tune or Mundorf caps, very large shunt regulated power supply for analog, fully discrete Class A analog output, uses through-hole components for almost all elements (except for SMD items on the discrete analog stage), etc.  The only things I would do differently is to use film-on-foil caps in the analog stage instead of silver mica, and maybe replace the Nichicon Fine Gold caps with Muse KZ.  But I think the LKS will be hard to beat.

You can also look at Audio-GD.  Models R2R-7 or NFB-7.77

auxinput
2,920 posts
 

Crutchfield does have a 30 day return policy, but I would not abuse it.  I would say you should be 90% sure of your choice before buying.

I would say the transport decision is not going to be as critical because there is not going to be as much difference between transports as there are between actual DACs.  Just make sure the transport has good digital clocks and linear power supply.  These are the two critical elements in my opinion.

auxinput
2,920 posts
 

On the LKS:

https://www.shenzhenaudio.com/l-k-s-audio-mh-da004-dual-es9038pro-flagship-dac-dsd-input-coaxial-bnc-aes-ebu-for-dop-usb-i2s-optical-audio-decoder.html

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/l-k-s-audio-mh-da004-dual-es9038pro-dac-van-dammes-double-impact.840938/

On the digital clock of the transport. I have tested the Jolida as a transport and it sounded very good. I would assume it has a good crystal clock for the 44.1khz sampling rate because it will only play CDs. The Cambridge CXC also has a good clock for CD, because it is designed from the ground up as a transport for ONLY CDs.

For other transports, it depends. Sometimes you can gather/assume information. For example, looking at a picture of the PS Audio Perfectwave Transport board:

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/psaudio7/board1_small.jpg

In the middle you can see what looks like two TCXO clocks (TXCO is temperature controlled). These are the yellow rectangles. Having two of them is an excellent design to support the two different sampling rate multipels. First multiple being 44.1 / 88.2 / 176.4 for CD and PCM/SACD rates. The second multiple being 48 / 96 / 192 for other PCM hi-res.

The Bryston BDP-3 is a computer motherboard that runs Linux operating system. I’m cannot be sure what clocks it runs, but I would assume it is just running the main computer CPU clock, so any SPDIF digital output has to be based on integer math compared against the computer CPU. But at least it has a full linear power supply (instead of switching power supply).

In my opinion, the Oppo players do not make a good transport for PCM audio. It uses two low grade clocks (25mhz and 27mhz I think). One is for CPU and the other is for HDMI interface. They are not good crystal clocks and are not even close to the native audio sampling rates. The CPU has to do integer math based on 27mhz to generate the 44.1khz or 48khz or whatever sampling rate output. This is okay, but not as good as a dedicated audio clock. Also, the digital board uses switching power supply so it’s double detrimental. This is okay for movie formats (dolby digital / dts) because the data is decoded and then clocked in the processor, but the Oppo just cannot play PCM as well as a really good transport. If you want to use Oppo, at least upgrade the power supply to a LPS from OPPOMOD.

auxinput
2,920 posts
 

If you look at internal pictures, you can generally tell if something does not have a linear power supply because you will not see a really large transformer and the power supply board will have really small capacitors.  Look at the Bryston BDP-3:

http://www.audiocircle.com/image.php?id=158255

You can see the larger round toroidal transformer on the left and 2 large capacitors on the power supply board with voltage regulators bolted to the bottom of the case.

In comparison, look at the oppo 203:

https://www.oppodigital.com/blu-ray-udp-203/images/UDP-203-internal-hr.jpg

Tiny yellow transformer in the middle is a sure indicator of switching power supply.

Oppo with linear power supply upgrade:

http://cfile5.uf.tistory.com/image/21207B4E586D8EFE34FFE5

You can see the huge size of the transformer in comparison.

auxinput
2,920 posts
 
@gdhal - I have listened to sample rate converters and reclockers. While reclockers will definitely help a bad source, in the end you still end up losing resolution and detail. It’s much better to have the original waveform data clocked properly at the source rather than reclocking a bad jitter source. Take for example an oppo Blu-ray. Listening to PCM audio through HDMI means the data is clocked badly at the source since the audio needs to be spread across multiple HDMI data packets and shared with video data. The HT processor has to try to reclock this properly. In real life, the sound may be okay, but it just doesn’t have the resolution / detail / air / texture. Listening to the same PCM from Oppo using digital coax is just highly superior, and even then this is not clocked as good as a dedicated PCM transport.

@melm - Cambridge CXC for cd transport. There’s one used on audiogon from Canada for $295. Hi-Fi Heaven is selling display models for $399. Crutchfield has them new for $449. Then get a nice DH Labs D-750 coax with BNC on one end (use the BNC input on the LKS). The CXC only has RCA digital coax output.
USB is likely to sound worse than coax spdif, but that’s a guess.
auxinput
2,920 posts
 
I was just saying that the CXC doesn’t have BNC output.
auxinput
2,920 posts
 
@melm - interesting.  It’s too bad you don’t have a desktop.  Next year I plan to buy the DAC first, but I will probably get the following as well.  I’m currently running digital coax out of a Xonar Essence PCI card.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pink-Faun-I2S-bridge-LKS-audio-Model-IV-Pink-Faun-IL3-I2S-HDMI-to-RJ45-cable/281933158086?hash=item41a48696c6:g:wu0AAOSwUuFWvK9v

it says it comes with an RJ45 cable wired specifically for the LKS i2s input.  The Pink Faun does not support DSD, only PCM up to 192 which is fine for me.  But I will likely experiment with DOP, as the LKS will accept DOP on its i2s input.  

I also read read that another DAC did DSD better than this LKS, but the LKS won for PCM format.  
auxinput
2,920 posts
 
@melm - the pink faun i2s models that include a hdmi-to-rj45 “single-ended” cable for a specific dac are $515.  The models without a cable are $330.  I think the pink faun cables are supposed to be really nice, so $185 for a custom i2s digital cable is not out of the realm of possibilities.  The custom hdmi-to-hdmi cable (with balanced digital) would be a tough one to make with all the wires needed.  And every DAC almost has their own hdmi i2s pin configuration.  Ugh!  Anyways, im sure it will be better than coax spdif, which is a single wire.

i don’t think many know about this card because they don’t really focus on a computer for a music server.  Many just use USB because it’s already there.  And the usb interface is industry standard, not like the vendor custom i2s interfaces, lol.  How many people do you know that actually use a SOTM USB card?  Probably more than pink faun, but it’s still a minority.

Direct i2s is still the way to go and better than spdif or usb because the systems do not have to wrap/unwrap the i2s data like they do with usb/spdif.  I’ll just have to do some experimenting.  I don’t do DSD right now, so anything will be an improvement.  Like I said, it’s possible that JRiver will send DOP (DSD-over-PCM) through this i2s card.  If it does, it’s a bonus for me.  I can always just use the usb if I decided to run any DSD files.

for my current system, the coax spdif sounds better than usb.  Spdif has more resolution, detail, bite to the music.

i have heard upsampling and it tends to smooth out the tones, gives a little less actual resolution/texture in my opinion, so I always prefer to run the DAC at the original source file sample rate.
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