Black Knight:
Good advice thanks.
Worth keeping I think.
Question though re the DAC. The DAC magic has the twin Wolfsons WM8740's but I understand the CD player has those exact same Wolfsons anyway.
Will using the magic with the CD player give any benefit??
Was primarily buying it as I use Spotify now.
In theory connecting the 640 to the DAC magic thru SPDIF will have lower jitter than the 640 by itself according to the specs on the website, and then there is the upscaling from the DAC to factor in, but in reality i found absolutely no difference in sound quality (or non that could be resolved using the 640A V2 amp at any rate!).
I did however use the DAC for the CD player for tidyness of cables and the benefit of only having one pair of interconnects going to the amp, thereby negating issues of crosstalk etc if other inputs were on at the same time....
The only reason i stopped using the DAC like this was when my CA640Cv2 digital output started giving midrange distortion which was clearly audible. Using the line output of the player got rid of this so i could only conclude that the digital output was stuffed. Couldnt complain too much really as the player had given me 5 years of flawless service. This was what spurred me into auditioning the Naim CD5i, you can see from my sig that i ended up spending a whole lot more than i planned haha! thats the risk of listening to nice kit in an audition!
The 640 now sits in my second system with the 640V2 amp (also in sig) and it sounds as good as it always did, very musical indeed for the money. Considering the price these can be had new at richer sounds they are a steal, but at the same time the second hand price is going to be low, so i would defo advise keeping hold!
At any rate you wont gain any sonic benefits from using the DAC instead of the RCA outputs but you wont lose any either, as someone else stated the DAC configuration is identical in both units.
If you want any more info on the combo let me know...
Cheers
Dan