what kind of sony cd-player did you buy?
some of one-box players have realy poor transport with non-sufficient level of digital output that cannot be re-locked properly.
i had the same problem using mccormack mod squad cd-player and on absolutely non-scratched cds. do not take scratches on your cd as the reason of skipping or producing an extraneous noise like in lp it's simply non-sufficient output level on your digital output. i keep my cds unscratched and untouched because i listen to them and i sell them almost right after and that's why i try to keep them new. despite this i know that scratches unless it goes deep onto the recorded surface will not affect precision of laser pickup since laser beam is an electro-magnetic waves.
there are certainly dacs far better than bel canto but in your case i would say that it's the transport problem and not dac. i believe that if you would connect your sony cd-player onto the tact rcs2 dac-preamp it would work. moreover this dac would do magic even on pocket cd-player with digital output.
some of one-box players have realy poor transport with non-sufficient level of digital output that cannot be re-locked properly.
i had the same problem using mccormack mod squad cd-player and on absolutely non-scratched cds. do not take scratches on your cd as the reason of skipping or producing an extraneous noise like in lp it's simply non-sufficient output level on your digital output. i keep my cds unscratched and untouched because i listen to them and i sell them almost right after and that's why i try to keep them new. despite this i know that scratches unless it goes deep onto the recorded surface will not affect precision of laser pickup since laser beam is an electro-magnetic waves.
there are certainly dacs far better than bel canto but in your case i would say that it's the transport problem and not dac. i believe that if you would connect your sony cd-player onto the tact rcs2 dac-preamp it would work. moreover this dac would do magic even on pocket cd-player with digital output.