Cd transport and separate dac vs cd player.

[Standing in the rain]

Is there going to be much difference in sound quality ?. I am thinking of getting a Cambridge audio cxc and a khadas tone board, or would a cd player to the same value sound as good.?

 

[RayDunzl]

If you are just taking the digital outs to the Khadas...

https://www.amazon.com/Onkyo-C-7030...ocphy=9012086&hvtargid=pla-358121850705&psc=1

I use a Tascam CD200 (plain,version)...

https://tascam.com/us/product/cd-200/top

I like a standalone DAC, because I run CD, Oppo, TV, HDRadio, and PC to it, for "consistency".

 

[daftcombo]

Hi,

I have the same question to ask.

I have a very basic Sony DVP-NS330, very cheap machine with OK specs.
SNR 115dB
THD 0.003%
That gives a SINAD of -90.5 dB.
[https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/support/res/manuals/3080/30805981M.pdf (see specifications page 71)]

Right now, the RCA outputs are plugged on a JDS Lab Atom Amp, driving a pair of Magnat LZR 980.

Is it worth getting a Khadas Tone Board to put in-between ?
I would use a Canare 75 Ohm coaxial cable, but I am not sure I would get any audible sound quality gain. (By "audible", I mean I could spot the difference 100% of the time in an ABX at least for a few songs.)

Cheers.

 

[garbulky]

As a transport any old cd or dvd player will do. Go as cheap as you like

 

[JJB70]

I understand the allure of premium build quality but if just thinking about SQ then any competently designed CD player or CD transport plus DAC should be audibly transparent.

 

[Theo]

I had to go to two separate units when the DAC inside my (old) CD player went dead... I bought a Swissonic DA converter at 35€ and an optical SPDIF cable and here we go, works like a charm...

 

[daftcombo]

I had to go to two separate units when the DAC inside my (old) CD player went dead... I bought a Swissonic DA converter at 35€ and an optical SPDIF cable and here we go, works like a charm...

Is it better? Samey?

 

[FrantzM]

As a transport any old cd or dvd player will do. Go as cheap as you like

That was going to be my advice ...

 

[daftcombo]

That was going to be my advice ...

I read about old CD players having a bad coaxial output. Is it true? Only a legend?
Is it just because it's not 75 ohm?
If it is 75 ohm, is it always the same, and fine?

 

[garbulky]

Walmart has a DVD player for $40

 

[Vincent Kars]

I read about old CD players having a bad coaxial output. Is it true? Only a legend?

IMHO this has nothing to do with the impedance.
In fact most of the time the output (and often the input at the DAC as well ) is RCA.
As RCA plugs don’t have a 75 Ohm impedance, you have a mismatch anyway.

The task of a transport (optical drive in this case) is to read the disk and send a SPDIF stream to a DAC.
SPDIF is a bit of a funny protocol.
Normally the send rate of a bus is just a means to transport the bits from one device to another .
In case of SPDIF, the send rate is also information as it is used to derive the sample rate.
If the clocking of the sender is poor, you have a lot of input jitter at the receiver.

Does this matter?
The answer is that it depends on the quality of the DAC. A well designed one is very good at rejection of input jitter.
This is a nice example:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ents-of-chromecast-audio-digital-output.4544/

The Chromecast output is pretty jittery but a DAC like the Topping eliminates this completely.

 

[Theo]

Is it better? Samey?

Same I think. Difficult to say if you don't have a direct comparison.

 

[daftcombo]

IMHO this has nothing to do with the impedance.
In fact most of the time the output (and often the input at the DAC as well ) is RCA.
As RCA plugs don’t have a 75 Ohm impedance, you have a mismatch anyway.

The task of a transport (optical drive in this case) is to read the disk and send a SPDIF stream to a DAC.
SPDIF is a bit of a funny protocol.
Normally the send rate of a bus is just a means to transport the bits from one device to another .
In case of SPDIF, the send rate is also information as it is used to derive the sample rate.
If the clocking of the sender is poor, you have a lot of input jitter at the receiver.

Does this matter?
The answer is that it depends on the quality of the DAC. A well designed one is very good at rejection of input jitter.
This is a nice example:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ents-of-chromecast-audio-digital-output.4544/

The Chromecast output is pretty jittery but a DAC like the Topping eliminates this completely.

Thanks!
Which Topping? My D10 doesn't have a S/PDIF in.
How about a Khadas Tone Board?

 

[Willem]

Until recently I used the analogue outputs of the various DACs in my plasma television, older cheap BD player and the Chromecast Audio playing into an old but refurbished Quad 33 pre amplifier. None of these inbuilt DACs were state of the art, and my Quad 33 was also getting long in the tooth. So I bought a Pioneer U-05 DAC/preamp to use with the digital outputs of my sources. The sound is clearly better, but I am not sure if this is due to the inferiority of the inbuilt DACs or the less than stellar performance of my old Quad preamp. The beauty of the Pioneer is that it has a multitude of digital inputs.

 

[M00ndancer]

Most likely the Pioneer.

 

[M00ndancer]

Thanks!
Which Topping? My D10 doesn't have a S/PDIF in.
How about a Khadas Tone Board?

Get a D30, same price or less since the Tone board comes w/o a case.

 

[Cosmik]

But of course as was being discussed in the I2S thread, there is an irony in the choice of splitting transport and DAC. The original commercial digital audio source from 1982 - the standard CD player - was/is conceptually perfect, whereas by splitting the transport and the DAC and linking them by S/PDIF or TOSLINK, it is not perfect.

The integrated CD player is conceptually equivalent to asynchronous USB, or other packet-based protocols that request data from the source at the behest of the DAC, which is regulated by a single, fixed frequency clock placed right at the chip. In the case of the CD player, it is the transport whose speed is adapting to the DAC's (effective) requests for data.

If the feedback loop is broken and the transport runs at its own clock speed rather than under control of the DAC, the DAC side of the system has to have an adaptive element to handle the mismatch between transport and DAC clocks.

It most likely isn't audible, but it means there is at least one negative amongst whatever positive advantages there might be from splitting the boxes.

 

[daftcombo]

Get a D30, same price or less since the Tone board comes w/o a case.

I hear you. There's still the question: would there be any audible audio quality gain by using an external DAC like a D30 instead of listening to the RCA out of such a machine?

 

[M00ndancer]

I hear you. There's still the question: would there be any audible audio quality gain by using an external DAC like a D30 instead of listening to the RCA out of such a machine?

Maybe, can't tell w/o measure the player. But probably not.