a few questions wont take long for you guys

[smuggs]

if i purchased a dac magic, does the cd player make a differance (cause all ill be doing is sending a digital out to the dac magic)?

does changing the cd player make more change to the sound than the amp?( i ask because i have changed my amp 3times in 6 months and have found small changes the last being the best the acram alpha 9, but i have sent my CA 640H to get new software update and a soak test because im going to sell it on ebay to help funds for a dac magic so they lent me a £40 tangent cd player and it sounds rough as nails, so bad i cant listen to music.

and what would be better 3m run of optical then 1m of rca's or the other way round?

and how far would spotify(laptop)/itunes(ipod) through the dac magic to teh arcam be off a cd as SQ goes

many thanks the normal pest simon

 

[idc]

The CDP can make a difference, primarily due to its output and jitter which is the timing of the digital data it is sending to the DAC. How big a difference, I am not shure, but I am convinced that the transports can sound different.

I suspect that the amp will have more of an impact on the overall sound as you have already experienced.

Your cable runs are short enough that they should not matter. The longer optical run is the cheaper option over long RCAs.

Itunes using lossless competes very well with a CD as the data and bit rates are the same. Spotify has a lower bit rate, but uses a different codec and I find it competes very well with Apple Lossless and CD. It does sound a bit flat when compared with the other two.

 

[the record spot]

Just use the PS3, good Sony transport, good build and your DAC will take care of the rest.