what are the Best Direct to amps Digital Players ?

Audiolabyrinth asked me to post in this thread the following comment I made in another thread:

08-04-13: Almarg

What made me think of the question when I posted is that with 2 piece cd players I've always heard HUGE differences between digital cables.

There are many reasons why large differences can be expected between digital cables that connect CD transports to DACs. Not only the type of cable, but even the length of the cable can make a major difference. See this paper for starters.

Basically, in those applications the effects of impedance mismatches between the cable and the components it is connecting, the introduction of noise due to ground loop effects or RFI pickup (both of which are cable sensitive), and other ways in which the cable may affect waveform integrity can ultimately have very significant effects on jitter at the point where D/A conversion is performed within the DAC (to a greater or lesser degree depending on the jitter rejection capability of the particular DAC).

None of those factors have any relevance to transmission of digital data from a USB hard drive to your Oppo, as long as nothing involved is defective. The technical considerations are completely different, and vastly less critical with respect to their potential effect on sonics.

Post back if you have further questions about this.

Regards,
-- Al

Audiolabyrinth, as always there are tradeoffs.

If the cable connecting a transport and DAC is not both good quality and a good match for the two specific components it can certainly have major adverse effects on the sound. And whether or not it will be a good match depends not only on its intrinsic quality, but also on a complex and mostly unpredictable set of relationships and interactions between its parameters, including length, impedance accuracy, shielding effectiveness, shield resistance, propagation velocity, etc., and the technical characteristics of what it is connecting, including signal risetimes and falltimes, impedance accuracy, jitter rejection capability, ground loop susceptibility, etc.

On the other hand, combining the transport and DAC into an integrated player can certainly have its downsides as well. Perhaps the most significant potential downside is coupling of electrical noise from the transport mechanism into the D/A converter circuit, where it can cause jitter, and also into analog circuitry.

Steve Nugent of Empirical Audio, who authored the article I linked to, and also posted earlier in this thread as "Audioengr," has far more experience that is relevant to your questions than I do. I see no reason to doubt his opinions on these matters, and so I suspect that in general, in the price range you seem to be considering, a two-box setup would be the preferable alternative. PROVIDED that a cable that is a good match for the particular components is used, and given the unpredictability of many of the technical factors I listed above significant experimentation may be necessary to find the best match. And given all of those technical factors, involving the components as well as the cable, I would not assume that higher cable price necessarily implies greater likelihood of being the best match.

As far as fixing excessively forward sound is concerned, assuming that you are referring to your Ayon player the only suggestion that occurs to me is the obvious one of tube rolling.

Regards,
-- Al

Audiolabyrinth, you're welcome, and thanks for the nice words. Good luck in your quest!

Regards,
-- Al