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Loss of inner detail

Greetings,
I've owned a Sony SCD-XA5400ES for 2 years now and really do love it. In my system it has out performed these CDPs:
Electrocompanient EMC-1UP
Linn Ikemi
Meridian 508.24
Accuphase DP-57
Resolution Audio Opus 21
Ayre CX-7e
Bel Canto CD-1

I got the OK from my wife to buy a "final" Transport - DAC (ie: spend a larger dollar amount, ha) that will give me the flexibility of having digital input for the possibility of adding a server at one point.

As I live in Minneapolis I thought I'd try the Bel Canto CD-2 and DAC 3 combo (used). Well, I got a good deal on a used DAC 3 and ran my Sony into the DAC using RCA spdif from the Sony into the DAC3. (I'm waiting to buy a used CD2, but they don't come up often)
ALL inner detail of songs has disappeared (I'm exaggerating a bit, but the difference is quite stark!). Music sounds FAR superior just using the Sony. Why is this?

I'm using a Black Cat Veloce digital cable.

Rest of my system:

Gamut CD-2r preamp
TAD-60 amp
Spendor S9 speakers
Analysis Plus interconnects and speaker cables

Please offer your thoughts as this is my first foray into a separate Transport & DAC

Thanks!
tgyeti
tgyeti OP
84 posts
 
Thanks to everyone for their responses so far. I may be using the phrase "inner detail" incorrectly. Here's what I mean .....
Artist: Marisa Monte
Album: Rose and Charcoal
Song: Maria de Verdade

As with a lot of Latin songs, there is a lot of percussion going on in this song. The primary percussive sounds I'm hearing up front are bass drum and maybe some deep floor toms. Deeper in the mix (lying more in the background) are some metallic "clanking" and bell like sounds. While playing this song on my Sony (NOT into the DAC3) , the background clanking and bell percussion is 15% of the audio "sonic picture" coming at me. (Please forgive me if I'm using novice descriptions for audio, but I hope you're following this). When I play this same song on the Sony as a transport into the Bel Canto DAC 3, that background percussion is now 5% of the audio "sonic picture" coming at me.
To me, that is not an improvement.
audioengr
3,282 posts
 
Its probably jitter from the transport. If the transport had low jitter, it might even be better than the Sony. Also, your digital cable could be contributing.

IMO, you can replace the cable with a Ridge Street Audio Poiema in 1.5m length and use a different transport or reclock the transport and get good results. Never use less than 1.5m for a digital cable:

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue14/spdif.htm

Have you tried the Sony driving the DAC3 with S/PDIF coax?

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
tgyeti OP
84 posts
 
I'm using a 1.23m RCA Black Cat Veloce cable S/PDIF
st01
36 posts
 
The Sony upsamples CD's and then uses a simpler filtration system that affects the audio band a lot less than traditional filtering on 44/16 CD's. Read robert harley's bok to understand this better.
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,581 posts
 
If I were to hazard a guess it would either be the transport or the cable. I know what you mean by loss of detail having experienced it firsthand. What was there is now diminished or simply gone. That would have me scratching my head as well.
Time to experiment.
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