"Good CDP w/ Good DAC" vs. "OK CDP w/ Better DAC?"

[dgorecki]

Hi all,

 

Currently have the following setup:

 

Arcam A38 integrated

Arcam CD17 CDP

Simaudio Moon 100D (hooked up to PC only, not CDP)

NAD C542 CDP (for occasional HDCD playback and use in other rooms)

 

I'm moving towards ripping my CDs to my PC and playing back from there. Will still use a CDP because I'm sure it will take a while to move everything over. I've started thinking about whether I will upgrade the 100D as I get more serious about PC playback (nice program with SimAudio to get 100% of 100D price back to apply to 300D).

 

Then it hit me....

Why don't I sell the CD17 (the better of the two CDPs) and the 100D, and put the money toward a better DAC (Moon 300D, Rega DAC, Wyred 4 Sound). I could use the digital out of the C542 and use the new DAC for both CDs and PC playback.

 

Are there any flaws in my logic? Is the DAC in the Arcam CD17 that good that I could sacrifice quality? Is the transport that important?

 

Sorry for the long post. Curious on what people think as this is something that will come up often as we move towards computer audio.

 

Thanks!

 

 

[trappy]

That's what I did when I bought my iDecco. Works like a charm.

 

[darascal]

I don't think there are any flaws in your logic. I don't think you'll be sacrificing quality if you choose the right dac (your list looks good, I assume you mean the w4s dac2). I believe the transport is very important, and a music server can make for an excellent transport.

 

Btw, if you've done much reading on this site, then you'll have absorbed that close attention needs to be paid to the music server setup, including memory, choice of music player, dedicated vs non-dedicated, various audio settings, interface to dac, etc. etc.

 

Have fun,

rascal

 

[ecwl]

I agree with rascal.

 

If I were in your shoes, I probably wouldn't sell anything just yet. Try to optimize the computer audio setup to playback on your 100D. You should get better sound than your CDPs (as transports and as DACs). You can also explore which user interface you prefer on your computer audio setup.

 

Once you're happy with the 100D sound from your computer and with the user interface, you can then sell everything and upgrade to a better DAC. After all, you may find the computer setup too complicated or the user interface too unwieldy that you may want to stick with CDs. But somehow I doubt it.

 

 

[dgorecki]

As for my computer setup, I use a dedicated sound card, an X-Meridian, and a Digital coax cable to the 100D. The software I use for ripping is dbPoweramp, and for playback, JRMC.

 

For JRMC, I started using ASIO driver, but found it stuttered when CPU was being used, so changed to WASAPI and everything's been good since!

 

 

 

[jonmarsh]

If you're using a DAC that doesn't use SRC in the front end to filter jitter, then the transport quality as regards the jitter output is an important factor. Remember, this is where a lot of discussion goes on even for computer based sources, as to the variance in sound quality with different computer interfaces with different levels of jitter.

 

If your DAC does rely on SRC for filtering incoming jitter, then the impact will be less, but the experience of some is that this type of DAC tends to homogenize the sound and have a particular footprint regardless of the source- Benchmark DAC's are an example.

 

Some fairly high end DAC's like the Berkeley Alpha DAC do respond differently to the level of incoming jitter. Maybe that's something to research in the DAC's your using or considering.

 

[dgorecki]

Thanks Jon. My Moon 100D apparently employs an asynch Sample Rate Converter (SRC). I'm assuming that's what you're talking about, so I should be OK on the jitter front?

 

[jonmarsh]

Yes, that helps in a sense, but sometimes makes it's own problems.

 

As in most things in life, it's the implementation overall that counts. But for now, it might be less of a concern, though something to think about in the future- you might find something like a Halide Bridge might make a difference in your system still. But perhaps that's an investigation for another day...