DAC or CD player??

[Womaz]

I am considering buyng a DAC to help improve the Arcam CD
player.







I seem to be doing more of my listening through headphones
now and have invested in some AKGQ701S and the MF1 headphone amp. This has been
a bit of a revelation, so much so that I use my headphones 80% of the time.







I am now thinking about improving the source.







My local dealer, who has been excellent , has recommended
that rather than upgrade my CD player a good DAC might be an option, as this
could be used if I eventually go for a
streamer. I have decided to leave the streamer for now , but may upgrade the CD
player if it is worth it. Until now I believed a DAC was for computer music, so
I never even give this route a thought.







Would a high end DAC really make a huge difference to my CD
player, any thoughts welcome. Or would a say budget £400 to £500 DAC be any
good.







Does anyone have any experience of this?...any comments or
help always appreciated.

 

[Anonymous]

My local dealer, who has been excellent , has recommended that rather than upgrade my CD player a good DAC might be an option, as this could be used if I eventually go for a streamer. I have decided to leave the streamer for now , but may upgrade the CD player if it is worth it. Until now I believed a DAC was for computer music, so I never even give this route a thought.

A DAC needs a digital source... and your CD player has a digital output which will provide just such a source. Essentially, you continue to use the transport of your CD player, but then add on a better, separate, DAC to the "digital out" of the CD player.

Depending on your budget, you could try a £400-£500 DAC (Rega DAC?) and see what improvement that brings with your CD player, then may be try a "high end" DAC and a high end CD player to compare (you won't need a DAC with a high end CD player). Also, look at headphone amps in conjunction with your CD player/DAC if you use headphones a lot.

 

[Womaz]

Thanks Dr Lodge

When you say a high end CD player, what would you class as high end?....

Would a high end DAC, say 2k dramatically improve my Arcam, or would a £500 say DAC do the job. I know a demo would be needed.

I also already have just bought a Musical Fidelity Headphone amp , so not quite sure what you were getting at there.

Thanks for the guidance though....much appreciated.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Dr Lodge

When you say a high end CD player, what would you class as high end?....

Would a high end DAC, say 2k dramatically improve my Arcam, or would a £500 say DAC do the job. I know a demo would be needed.

I also already have just bought a Musical Fidelity Headphone amp , so not quite sure what you were getting at there.

Thanks for the guidance though....much appreciated.

First off, scrub my comment about a headphone amp, as you already have one

Its probably pointless talking about whats "high end", since it depends on your budget and objective, what you are wanting to get out of any upgrade? Wadia 381 is high end for example, but you may get enough from a DAC upgrade.

if your dealer is good, then he should be able to advise, my suggested route is:

- try a £400-£500 DAC with your CD player and see what improvement you get.

- Compare above with a better DAC or CD player, to see if the improvement is worth the outlay. I have no idea if a £2k DAC would be a worthwhile improvement over a £500 DAC. Try and judge for yourself.

If you decide to opt for a more expensive CD player over a DAC upgrade, then best if it has digital intputs, so it can be used as a DAC with other digital sources (TV, blu-ray player, streamer etc). That's what I like about my Wadia...digital inputs and outputs Otherwise a DAC is the more flexible option.

Only your ears can judge, and your dealer is in a better place to advise of options than me...

 

[Womaz]

Thanks again, very informative.

I keep my hifi and tv stuff sepertate as very rarely watch tv , and for some reason the SQ does not bother me whilst watching tv

I am considering demo of Audiolab and Musical Fidelity DAC.....they are around £500 to £600.

The dealer also has the new Arcam DAC, but thats 2k. So far he has been excellent so will hear what he has to say.

I take it you are saying if I spend £1.5k to 2k on a new CD player , it really should have a good built in DAC, that could be used with a streamer at a later date??

Is the SQ prmarily affected by the quality of the DAC??.....that seems to be what I am hearing.?

 

[Anonymous]

I take it you are saying if I spend £1.5k to 2k on a new CD player , it really should have a good built in DAC, that could be used with a streamer at a later date??

Yes, but you can only use the CD player as a DAC is it has a digital input facility, which a lot of CD players don't have.

Is the SQ primarily affected by the quality of the DAC??.....that seems to be what I am hearing.?

Yes, pretty much. Transports do make a difference but I would say the DAC is the primary driver. As you get into the more expensive players, the combined transport/DAC devices will sound better simply because the DAC and transport are physcially close to each other, and have been designed as one. That said, your CD82 should provide a good transport so just add DAC via a decent digital Coax cable. Exceptions apply however, e.g. the Wadia 9 series "Decoding Computer" @ £30k

Would be interested to hear your views between a £500 DAC, and the Arcam @ £2k powered off your CD82 transport.

 

[Womaz]

Thanks again Dr Lodge, really appreciate the time you have taken to help me with this.

I am listening to speaker demos this week so might try and do this at same time...depends on time of course.

So many variables with Hifi these days

 

[Womaz]

Anyone else care to offer an opinion on this?....always open to ideas.

 

[busb]

Hi Womaz

I echo Dr Lodge's advice - listening to something like the Rega DAC & hopefully being able to try at home would be a great start. I would hesitate to consider a new CDP that doesn't have digital inputs. If you want to try ripping CDs, buy HD music or prehaps even connect a TV that has a digital out, you burn your bridges without these inputs.

I've just bought an Audiolab M-DAC, to which I connect my TV & AppleTV via optical with my Rotel RCD-1072 connected to a coax input. It sounds stunning now it's run-in. This DAC has a digital volume control so I'm considering buying a power amp rather than a better integrated than my Primare. Although £100 more than your stated budget, it has a good headphone amp, it is reported - I've neither tried headphones or the USB input yet.

 

[SteveR750]

I might offer a different view - I suspect that the transport is far more important in the CDP, it has to rip and stream the data first time without any read errors. This is virtually impossible even for espterically expensive transports, so there is always going to be a varying amount of error correction going on. It is possible that this has a more detrimental effect than say jitter / clocking phase problems in the DAC, though it's equally possible it's not, depending on what kit you are using and matching.

A high quality streaming source in theory is closer to, if not actually achieving bit perfect data into the DAC, where a CD transport is probably not. Whether this is actually that desirable (as in is the truth really that critical) is a moot point.

 

[Womaz]

Thank you for all the replies, very helpful.

 

[Womaz]

Thanks Audio Maniac, again very informative.

I think my dealer mentioned the Rega DAC too.

 

[Womaz]

I am also presumimg you meant the Audiolab 8200 CD player?

 

[Anonymous]

Both, Audiolab 8200DQ and 8200CD.

Comparing Sabre and Wolfson DACs, I would say ESS Sabre 9018 DAC sounds more detailed (very transparent indeed) and has greater dynamics, whereas Wolfson WM8741/8742 are warmer, has more body and sounds more natural. In fact, Sabre's based DAC may be a bit cold for some tastes.

 

[Womaz]

Audio Maniac wrote

A Rega DAC outperforms an Arcam CD82 easily and the Musical Fidelity M1 DAC as well.

Can you clarify this, did you mean that the Rega will easily otperform the MF M1DAC also, or did you mean that the MF MIDAC, will easily outperform my CD82...... I know the only way is to test, but may help me narrow it down.

Thanks

 

[Anonymous]

A Rega DAC outperforms an Arcam CD82 easily and so the Musical Fidelity M1 DAC.

Unless you plan to upgrade your amplification, in my opinion it's not worth investing on a £2000 DAC. By adopting of the above mentioned DACs, you'll get a digital source nearly as good as a Rega Saturn or Arcam FMJ CD36/CD37.

Right now the best sub £500 DAC available in UK is the Rega DAC. It's a DAC based on the 32-bit/192Khz Wolfson WM8742 DAC chip and sounds warm, has great dynamics and good body. Other great option based on Wolfson's DACs is is the Audio-GD NFB2.1. It adopts the WM8741 which is currently Wolfson's top of the line DAC. It uses better parts than Rega DAC and shall outperform the latter by a small margin. However, I don't know if t there's an Audio-GD distributor in UK.

If you are after a more detailed DAC, you may try one of 32-bit/192Khz Sabre ESS9018 based DACs, like the Wyred 4 Sound DAC1 (£1000) and Audiolab 8200 (£700). As the Audio-GD NFB2.1, the Wyred 4 Sound DAC1 also uses 100% discrete outputs (jFET input) with no opamps on the signal path.

 

[Anonymous]

Sorry, I misplaced my point of view. I'm not an English native speaker and sometimes make some mistakes. I rewrote the first paragraph aiming to correct the phrase. I meant both Rega DAC and Musical Fidelity M1 DAC outperform the Arcam CD82.

Between Rega DAC and M1 DAC, I prefer the former - it sounds warmer and richer tonally and the MF is also better built - but the latter is also very good good. If you are on budget, you'll be happy with the M1 DAC which is considerably superior than your ARCAM CD82. However, if you don't mind spending an additional sum of 100 pounds, Rega DAC is undeniably a better product.

Pictures of internal parts of the above mentioned DACs are available on internet. Have at them and I'm sure you'll suspect the Rega's built is at a higher standard.

 

[Womaz]

Hi AudioManiac, very helpful, thank you.

The buget is not really a problem within reason I am just not sure how far I can go with this CD player.

My local dealer does not think a £500 Dac will give me much improvement.

The MF Dac would be great for me as I already have the MF1HPA, headphone amp and its nice to have matching kit sometimes

I have took delivery for a pair of PMC Twenty 23s today and I love them, and apparently they need time to settle in too.......I think the source is the next step, just not sure wehether to go for a Dac or a CD player. The Audiolab, appears to do both jobs unless I am missing something here.

I might sit for a while though and enjoy these speakers for a month or two.

 

[Anonymous]

Very nice loudspeakers!

Rega DAC is quite superior to CD82, but the magnitude of sound improvement depends on the amplification resolution as well. If you get a higher resolution amplifier, your system will get more sensitive to source modifications.

However, even if you keep your Arcam set, there'll be room for improvement. A DAC like Rega and MF's will improve the performance of your system certainly.

Your CD player is well built and will serve as a very good transort in case you purchase a DAC.

My advice is getting one of those DACs and afterwards save money to get a nice truly high-end amplifier, like ATC SIA2-150 or Naim Supernait.

 

[Overdose]

From my point of view, DACs offer very subtle differences to the reproduced sound, so much so, that you may not hear any difference at all. My advice would be to forget the erronious concept of 'high end', as it is not directly related to quality and try out several types of DAC at differing price ranges. A good DAC can offer more functionality, ie a variety of inputs and also have a preamp and/or headphone amp function as well.

 

[Womaz]

Thanks for all the help on here. Yes my new speakers are really really good......you know that feeling when you are looking for all your old favourites, just to hear them with the new equipment. Makes all the last 3 months deliberations well worth it.

 

[Anonymous]

I respect you point of view but I don't agree with you. DACs do sound different, but this difference may be subtle if they are in the same league as regards built quality (engineering and quality of components). Transports affect audio performance - jitter is not a mith - but DAC stages respond for more than 95% of a digital source performance and depending on the quality of clock circuit, much less than that (some DACs are more or less sensitive to jitter). So, by claiming that DACs sounds all the same, you mean all digital sources sound equally. Do you?

When I mentioned "high-end", it wasn't referred to price point but to built standard. There are many rubishes underneath high-end finishing. I won't list them to avoid troubles with owners and retailers. In other words, there are many overpriced equipment which rely their sales on popularity. I took this subject to the thread because amplification affects the sound quality. In higher level resolution amplifiers, DACs differences are more obvious. For the current system, both M1 DAC and Rega DAC are just more than enough.

From my point of view, DACs offer very subtle differences to the reproduced sound, so much so, that you may not hear any difference at all. My advice would be to forget the erronious concept of 'high end', as it is not directly related to quality and try out several types of DAC at differing price ranges. A good DAC can offer more functionality, ie a variety of inputs and also have a preamp and/or headphone amp function as well.

 

[Womaz]

I will probably go for a good intergrated Amp next. Been looking at the Musical Fidelity M3, but at 2.5k a bit steep for my pockets......so wil look at the M1 and other options.

I have decided to replace the source and the AMP as these speakers deserve better. It just depends on how much I can find to spend.

 

[naughty573]

I played around with an audiolab 8200CD for around a week since a mate of mine bought one and he was only going to set it up in his system a week later - he was initially going to buy a M-DAC since he had a fairly decent CD player but he looked at the price of the M-DAC and the 8200CD and decided that since the 8200CD was an M-DAC with a CD transport bolted on he would sell me his Denon CD player and get the 8200CD

I dont agree that the audiolab is a clinical sounding player as has been alluded earlier - in fact it is highly musical and extremely detailed and gives a truly high end sounding experience when coupled with other good equipment

My system is okay but the room acoustics restrict how my system sounds so i was only able to hear the true potential of the player as well as the DAC inputs when we hooked it up to his system - the player as well the laptop and ipad/ipod linked to the DAC inputs gave a truly three dimensional sound - it sounded like you could actually stand up and shake hands with the performers in front of you ..... and sure it did not sound like that in my system but i have comparatively entry level stuff and my room setup is not optimal

The audiolab is definitely worth a look IMHO moreso because of the 7 filter settings on the DAC which you can adjust to make the DAC sound how you like the sound to be - you might like the sound darker while i may like it brighter and edgier - and this can be adjusted in the settings similar to EQ settings but yep definitely the player itself as a CD player sounded better and more natural as well as more musical than the Denon DCD2000AE i bought off my buddy (the only reason why i did not purchase an audiolab myself is that he is giving me the Denon and allowing me to pay him with terms over a small period of time and i did not ave the cash to instantly outlay for the audiolab)

I think you should sell off your current CD player and add to sum to your DAC budget and im sure you can then probably easily afford an 8200CD or 8200CDQ

 

[Womaz]

I played around with an audiolab 8200CD for around a week since a mate of mine bought one and he was only going to set it up in his system a week later - he was initially going to buy a M-DAC since he had a fairly decent CD player but he looked at the price of the M-DAC and the 8200CD and decided that since the 8200CD was an M-DAC with a CD transport bolted on he would sell me his Denon CD player and get the 8200CD

I dont agree that the audiolab is a clinical sounding player as has been alluded earlier - in fact it is highly musical and extremely detailed and gives a truly high end sounding experience when coupled with other good equipment

My system is okay but the room acoustics restrict how my system sounds so i was only able to hear the true potential of the player as well as the DAC inputs when we hooked it up to his system - the player as well the laptop and ipad/ipod linked to the DAC inputs gave a truly three dimensional sound - it sounded like you could actually stand up and shake hands with the performers in front of you ..... and sure it did not sound like that in my system but i have comparatively entry level stuff and my room setup is not optimal

The audiolab is definitely worth a look IMHO moreso because of the 7 filter settings on the DAC which you can adjust to make the DAC sound how you like the sound to be - you might like the sound darker while i may like it brighter and edgier - and this can be adjusted in the settings similar to EQ settings but yep definitely the player itself as a CD player sounded better and more natural as well as more musical than the Denon DCD2000AE i bought off my buddy (the only reason why i did not purchase an audiolab myself is that he is giving me the Denon and allowing me to pay him with terms over a small period of time and i did not ave the cash to instantly outlay for the audiolab)

I think you should sell off your current CD player and add to sum to your DAC budget and im sure you can then probably easily afford an 8200CD or 8200CDQ

It is one of the CD players I am considering, but to be honest the speakers are 2k and I suppose I am now starting to think a similar expenditure on my source and amp is warranted.....but 4k is a bit much to find right now.

Thanks for the post