Using a Sony S9000es which was top of the line in its day. Reading through some threads around here measurements seem to be king. Is there any point in doing an outboard DAC for CD playback? If so, it seems most here think a $6k DAC can’t do so much more that you can hear audible increases in performance over a well designed $500 DAC, if my impressions are correct. So curious if the opinion here is the DAC in the player is probably perfectly fine or if I could see some worthwhile performance increase in an outboard.
-
WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!
Best DAC for CDs
- Thread starter Paully
- Start date
The question is, how are you connecting your speakers to the CD player?
DACs have become commodities for some years now. Even $100 DACs should be utterly transparent now. That being said, the player you mention seems to be from 2001 and if your are using the RCA outputs, then the quality of the DAC might matter.
If you are using the digital outs, then it means you’ll be using an external DAC anyway.
What I can tell you though, is that I have a rather cheap portable CD player from Sony, from 2005 or so, and with my sensitive IEMs it is dead silent and drives them easily. For all the talk about the Sony tax, they did good quality stuff at all price ranges, so I doubt those RCA outs are bad quality.
Hopefully someone with more direct experience with CD/DVD players, can chime in.
DACs have become commodities for some years now. Even $100 DACs should be utterly transparent now. That being said, the player you mention seems to be from 2001 and if your are using the RCA outputs, then the quality of the DAC might matter.
If you are using the digital outs, then it means you’ll be using an external DAC anyway.
What I can tell you though, is that I have a rather cheap portable CD player from Sony, from 2005 or so, and with my sensitive IEMs it is dead silent and drives them easily. For all the talk about the Sony tax, they did good quality stuff at all price ranges, so I doubt those RCA outs are bad quality.
Hopefully someone with more direct experience with CD/DVD players, can chime in.
- Thread Starter
- #3
Hi, thanks for responding. I’m enjoying reading this site. Seems no nonsense. The CD player feeds a preamp now using RCA output connectors. So just using it in a standard CD player sort of way. The player doesn’t read SACDs anymore, a common problem with this unit. So CDs are the only concern. The DAC in it may be just fine, but if I can improve it I would like to. Thoughts and suggestions are welcome. I read here that the Topping E30 and a Schiit DAC have performance that is at the top of human hearing for not much $ (a rather different perspective than the audiophile sites I visit…).
JSmith
Master Contributor
Well unless you use a digital out connection from the CD player such as coax or optical straight into an external DAC (so the players DAC is bypassed), it would be pointless getting an external DAC for this purpose. Even so, unless the players DAC is badly broken, there probably won't be any audible difference anyway. An external DAC can provide other helpful functions though.
Oh and welcome to ASR.
JSmith
- Thread Starter
- #5
Well unless you use a digital out connection from the CD player such as coax or optical straight into an external DAC (so the players DAC is bypassed), it would be pointless getting an external DAC for this purpose. Even so, unless the players DAC is badly broken, there probably won't be any audible difference anyway. An external DAC can provide other helpful functions though.
Oh and welcome to ASR.
JSmith
Thanks for the response. I thought the general opinion here would be an external DAC isn’t going to upgrade the sound perceptibly and that seems to be the case. And thanks for the welcome!
- Thread Starter
- #6
I took everybody’s thoughts into consideration and after my own consideration reading this site and others, I decided to go ahead and buy a Topping E50. It may make no difference whatsoever, probably won’t, but I just have to try. It is audio after all.
Human Bass
Addicted to Fun and Learning
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2018
- Messages
- 686
- Likes
- 699
The E50 is a great safe choice.
In addition to great performance over optical/coax, the USB performance really shines.. for when you're ready to start streaming or ripping CDs to play on a computer. I still enjoy spinning discs so I haven't ripped all mine yet.. but it's nice to have all in one performance in a small box. Love the sound on mine!
restorer-john
Grand Contributor
For CD playback, I'd be sticking to the onboard Sony's DAC. Right now, the onboard DAC is controlled by the player, once you go outboard, you are at the mercy of the Topping and how it responds to dropouts, mutes, SPDIF issues etc.
I did try one of the better measuring external dacs with a few of my old optical disc players (much cheaper ones than yours) and found no audible difference myself....ymmv but curious what you find with the new one (altho direct comparisons could be difficult).
The S9000ES has coax out, which doesn't have the random issues that optical does
What can be different is output level and possibly noise levels .
Outboard DAC means rightly that it has to look onto the spdif or toslink. But both usually works fine in practice.
If the old disc spinner still holds it specs ( or close to ) well now you also got yourself a nice DAC that also does other tricks like USB and other digital sources . You may find it useful for playback from a computer.
Personally I would hedge against eventual failure of disc players in another way and already done so.
Rip everything to lossless flac files ? Have a computer based or streamer based playback system .
If you really have a interest in classic hifi for the products themselfs and their history you may keep on using the CD player as you where and possibly find out if you can service it somewhere if it breaks, but I would not touch it unless there is an obvious problem. There are to many people out there doing modifications or other botched things to old hifi, it can be a challenge to find the rigth help.
If you just want to listen to your music , then there are other options .
Edit: if you have a tv or set top box with digital out now you have the E50 for those chores .
Outboard DAC means rightly that it has to look onto the spdif or toslink. But both usually works fine in practice.
If the old disc spinner still holds it specs ( or close to ) well now you also got yourself a nice DAC that also does other tricks like USB and other digital sources . You may find it useful for playback from a computer.
Personally I would hedge against eventual failure of disc players in another way and already done so.
Rip everything to lossless flac files ? Have a computer based or streamer based playback system .
If you really have a interest in classic hifi for the products themselfs and their history
you may keep on using the CD player as you where and possibly find out if you can service it somewhere if it breaks, but I would not touch it unless there is an obvious problem. There are to many people out there doing modifications or other botched things to old hifi, it can be a challenge to find the rigth help.If you just want to listen to your music , then there are other options .
Edit: if you have a tv or set top box with digital out now you have the E50 for those chores .
And RME DAC, and iPad dongle and an old Nakamichi CD player, all sound about the same to me.
The RME has an EQ and headphone outputs and a menu. But the difference is a best subtle if one us doing straight DAC without the EQ.
The RME has an EQ and headphone outputs and a menu. But the difference is a best subtle if one us doing straight DAC without the EQ.
I agree.
I myself own a DVP-S9000ES in perfect working order (It proceeds to play SA-CD well). In CD mode (and SA-CD mode, for that matter), the sound is indistinguishable from my three other disc players. All those players are plugged in a preamplifier with separated L/R input gain adjustments for all inputs, all gain controls being adjusted to produce exactly the same level at the output of the preamp down to one millivolt precision. In that situation, there is absolutely no sound difference between those disc players.
Last edited:
I agree with you if your only source is your disc collection and the rest of your system only uses an analog inputs, there is no need for an external DAC, use you disc player as long as it's healthy.
- Thread Starter
- #16
To answer a few questions and points, I decided to try something because there was some glare and harshness that I don’t experience with my vinyl collection. And I’m rather tired of paying $50 for digital records. Seems silly. And I’m a bit of an audiophile and certainly a hobbyist so I wanted to play around. I’m not disputing the science, not around here, but the DAC is inexpensive and well regarded for measurements so I wanted to give it a try. Only problem is I ordered from APOS based on another thread’s recommendation without realizing they are a drop shipment outfit. So when the slow boat arrives I can do some comparing. I can’t volume match and be scientific but if I decide I like it better just because I want to, that’ll be fine.
- Thread Starter
- #17
Got the DAC. Unfortunately it appears to be malfunctioning. Sound is very muffled. It’s like listening to music through a plaster wall. Says -30db on the screen. Tried it with another CD player, same result. Will try a different digital cable and see what happens.
Wasn’t this a DVD player? Does it have a optical or coaxial output?
Yikes. Any DAC on the recommended list here will be transparent. Though some don’t like jitter like some of the Toppings.
Similar threads
