CD6004 - An Alternative True-Digital iPod Transport (No Need for Expensive Wadia / Id100 etc)? Answer Found.

[ksoundwerx]

Following on from my previous thread:

http://www.whathifi.com/forum/hi-fi/cd-6004-with-ipod-connected-via-usb-marantz-dac-or-internal-ipod-dac-used

...Where I tried to establish the way in which way the Marantz CD6004 receives digital data from an iDevice when plugged in to the front USB port. I now have my answers.

At first I was unconvinced that the connection was truly digital, purely because all other dedicated iPod/iDevice digital transports I have seen use a docking port rather than a simple USB connection which the Marantz has. In addition all these 'seperate' iPod digital transport devices are all north of £150 also, so surely the Marantz couldn't have this feature included in it already modest price? I set out to find out to get to the bottom of it. The primary motivation in my persual of the facts is because I want to avoid using the Apple devices on-board DAC, which can be arguably be improved on quite easily.

First I emailed Marantz my technical query, but this took days to be answered.

In the meantime, I started by trying various connection methods between the iPod, CD6004 and my AVR (I am using the AVR rather than my PM7004 amp purely for the Toslink/optical connection) to see if I could find out myself.

I removed the phono RCA connections and used ONLY an optical cable between the AVR and CD6004. Logic suggests if the iPod would play its content through the CD player/AVR in this state of connection, it would go some way to prove the outgoing iPod signal IS digital, going straight through the CD6004 and out optically before finally using the AVRs DAC. After all, if the signal reaching the 6004 has already been converted to analogue, its hardly going to then reconvert to digital for transmission out from the optical connection.

At first attempt I got no sound at all. Conclusive I thought: the D-A-Conversion is performed on board the iPod, explaining the lack of any sound.

But then I played with the menus on the CD6004, and switched the USB OUT mode from '1.Analogue' to '2.Digital'. Bingo. Now I had sound coming through my speaker. Sounded good too. Did this mean that the Marantz can act as digital transport for the iPod/iDevice through its USB port? It certainly seemed so.

I then played some of the few albums I have stored on the iPod (I'm much more a CD man than digital media) in WAV and Apple Lossless through the CD6004, and then compared them to the original CDs (for fairness using the CD6004 as CD transport only via optical output to the AVR DAC for conversion, as per the iPod). I could tell no discernable difference is sound quality whatsoever. This lead me to conclude that the CD6004 can be used as a purely digital iDevice transport.

I then received this back from the Marantz technical support team a couple days later:

"Dear Mr Xxxxxxx,

Thank you for your inquiry.

Both the CD6004 and its predecessor the CD6003 both facilitate a Direct Digital interface with iPod, bypassing the iPods built in DAC.

We've had this technology for a number of years now and indeed were actually the first manufacturer to license & feature such a direct digital access technology.

Thank you

Sincerely,

Marantz Customer Support"

So that confirms it.

The fact you can bypass the iDevices DAC and listen to your stored music with outboard DAC conversion via either the Marantz's own high-quality DAC (it must be good given how well it performs as a CD player) or via optical output for conversion through a seperate DAC adds considerable value to the already outstanding CD6004. For less than £300 you get an award winning CD player with added iDevice digital transport capabilities, and use of a remote control too. This then leads me to wonder the value of costly dedicated iDevice transports, such as the Wadia 170i (£350), CA id100 (£150) and other offerings from Arcam and Onkyo, as all these devices really do is extract the iPod data for DAC conversion elsewhere - which is where the real SQ improvements are made.

Sorry if I have bored some of you with my experimentations and pursual of the technical side of things! I'm an electrical/electronic engineer by trade and love to know how my things work, if only to allow me to make better choices in how I choose to use my equipments features and connectivity.

I hope this may have been of some help to some of you too.

Keith

 

[ksoundwerx]

Please excuse the small breaks after paragraphs - I can't get the hang of this forum, it didn't look like that when I typed it!

 

[MeanandGreen]

I'm pleased you got sorted in the end. That is very good that your CD player has this facility, you'd think it would be made more well known! 🙂

Just wondering though, do you actually notice a real difference in sound between the iPods DAC and the Marantz DAC? Just curious, nothing more :?

 

[ksoundwerx]

Thanks M&G,

Yes I'm pleased to have found out what I wanted to know.

With regards to sound quality, I don't actually often listen to music stored digitally (it's my wife that does), preferring the whole process of selecting and then physically loading a CD, looking at the artwork, listening to an artist album through. I have some music stored on her iPod and I've never been 100% convinced about the sound, but some of that is no doubt due to the old method we used for connection: via the headphone output to the AUX in on my amp. Of course this method uses the on board iDevice DAC but is also at a disadvantage due to using the headphone output rather than a proper line level output, so arguably the comparisons are not on a level playing field anyway. But to answer your question, the sound quality is better now.

What's also significant (for me) is as digital music increses in popularity (along with Apple devices!) I feel I should perhaps start to make my setup more 'digital friendly', with attention to sound quality. My plan is to include a seperate DAC at some point (I'm also keen to discover whether a seperate outboard DAC can bring benefits to my CD music) and possibly an iDevice transport - which up until now I thought to be the only way to obtain the digital data stream from any iDevice. Now I know I do not need to waste my money on the latter.

So I'm a happy guy now!

 

[Anonymous]

recently bought a MF M1 Dac and I am really pleased with it just after 20hr of running. It improved a lot the SQ ,it is connected to the cd6004 thru digi coax. Just ordered a BD player and will try it shortly as a transport, If it gives me 90% of the current Sq the marantz will go...

 

[ksoundwerx]

Very very nice DAC. Congratulations! That will no doubt provide superb sound to whatever you use as transport.

If you ever listen to iDevice music, it may be worth keeping the Marantz as a good looking CD/iDevice digital transport. Can't deny it looks great, and compliments your KI amp!

 

[Anonymous]

it looks ok, but do not have any iDevice and the new bd player has flac, mp3 support ,also the MF DAC usb input is very good quality..