Assuming a CDP has a well sorted DAC and decent transport then why do so many people credit lossless music file replay through a stand-alone DAC as being better?
My non-experienced (until my DAC arrives) thinking and received 'wisdom' on this is as follows...
1) No mechanical transport, box etc. to pick up mechanical and airborne vibration from the CD player and the surroundings/speakers.
2) Error correction already done (when file was ripped) whereas CDP has to do it 'on the fly' in real time.
3) Bit perfect stream of data.
4) No troublesome timing/jitter issues.
5) Upsampling by external DAC? (Although I thought most decent CDPs already have this as well.)
Anything alse I have missed?
I have tried to explain all this (badly probably) to a friend who wants to know if his iMac/iTunes + Apple lossless ripped CDs + DacMagic will sound better than his Rega Apollo through his Primare i30/JM Focal 716 system.
I have - very rashly - told him it should (in theory) sound better especially as he can utilise direct optical connection from the iMac and balanced connections betwixt DacMagic and Primare i30. (His Apollo CDP does not have balanced connections.)
Next question from him (I could not answer this) was.. 'will a direct optical connection from the DacMagic to the Apollo CDP sound better than lossless files from the iMac'?
Ideally he would like to sell the Apollo and put his CDs in storage if the quality was better but both of us have our doubts about whether the Apollo + DacMagic + balanced connects may actually 'trump' the lot!
Any thoughts?
Thanks
My non-experienced (until my DAC arrives) thinking and received 'wisdom' on this is as follows...
1) No mechanical transport, box etc. to pick up mechanical and airborne vibration from the CD player and the surroundings/speakers.
2) Error correction already done (when file was ripped) whereas CDP has to do it 'on the fly' in real time.
3) Bit perfect stream of data.
4) No troublesome timing/jitter issues.
5) Upsampling by external DAC? (Although I thought most decent CDPs already have this as well.)
Anything alse I have missed?
I have tried to explain all this (badly probably) to a friend who wants to know if his iMac/iTunes + Apple lossless ripped CDs + DacMagic will sound better than his Rega Apollo through his Primare i30/JM Focal 716 system.
I have - very rashly - told him it should (in theory) sound better especially as he can utilise direct optical connection from the iMac and balanced connections betwixt DacMagic and Primare i30. (His Apollo CDP does not have balanced connections.)
Next question from him (I could not answer this) was.. 'will a direct optical connection from the DacMagic to the Apollo CDP sound better than lossless files from the iMac'?
Ideally he would like to sell the Apollo and put his CDs in storage if the quality was better but both of us have our doubts about whether the Apollo + DacMagic + balanced connects may actually 'trump' the lot!
Any thoughts?
Thanks