Upgrade to a DAC, upgrade my CD player or a little bit of both?

[Tarxman]

Hi all,

I have my two channel gear on the way in the form of the Kandy K2 integrated and K2 power amp combo. At the moment, I use my Marantz DV6001 as a dedicated CD player, which is quite reasonable. Now that my proper hifi is on the way, I'm considering how I should approach cd playback.

See the reason I went with the Marantz initially is due to its support of SACD playback, of which I've generated a small, but solid collection. The player does up sample standard CDs to 176.4kHz or 192kHz depending on the original format, however it does lack any digital inputs for my Mac mini and tv audio.

One of my suppliers at work also distribute NAD gear and I know I can get a cracking deal on an M51 DAC to use with the existing player, alternatively, I even thought of an Audiolab 8200CD to use as my DAC and main CD player, and just use the Marantz when playing an SACD.

Thoughts?

 

[Al ears]

What sort of budget do you have Tarxman?

If you are looking at a M51 Dac then I guess it is not small.

My advice to you would be to sell your Marantz as it's getting on a bit now.

Hopefully to sort all your connection needs and a few more I would suggest, like I did, you invest in an Oppo BDP-105EU

Yes I know it's a Blu-Ray player and you are looking a stereo CD playback but you will be pleasantly surprised.

The sound quality from this Universal Player if brilliant.

You can connect your Mac and / or use the Oppo's streaming abilities, it will connect via USB or MHL also coaxial and optical connections.

I use it as my SACD player and also have it as a streamer connected via ethernet cable to my PC.

As an all-rounder its a bit of a Swiss Army knife, amazing ability and the ESS SABRE32 Reference Audiophile DAC itself is extremely good.

Cannot recommend highly enough and it should really do the business through your Roksan amps.

 

[the record spot]

I'd be interested to hear how you feel the bi-amped 905 works with its' onboard DACs compared to the K2 set-up.

 

[Tarxman]

The first path I'll have to take is looking at what I can buy through my suppliers as I can get a much better price for that stuff. I have access to Marantz & Denon, NAD and Yamaha, though looking at those, only Marantz & Denon higher end cd players have both SACD support as well as a DAC.

As far as Onkyo AVR vs Kandy stereo, I'll keep you posted, might even try and record a before and after sample with my studio mic's, that way we can see if there is an obvious difference.

 

[Tarxman]

Yamaha's very very high end stuff too.

 

[Tarxman]

Though no DAC on Yamaha