CD Jukebox and a seperate DAC? Any info and/or experiences are appreciated.

[Britchie]

Anyone have experience with a CD Jukebox and a seperate DAC? I really love the convenience of my CD Changer (Sony CDP-cx355) but feel like the music could be better if played with a better CD Player. I was thinking about using an external DAC. Would this make that much of a difference, or is it the amateaur Audiophile bug that's got my mind working on something that will hardly be noticable?

I guess this would be called using the Sony as a transport? (please correct me if my terminology is wrong) And if so, is the Sony anygood at being a transport.

Thank you in advance for any info.

BR

[Burke Strickland]

Jukebox player in TRANSPORT mode can do a good job

I have been using a Sony ES-level 200 disc CD carousel player for several years. From the moment I first put it into play, I thought it had excellent DACS and was quite content to use it as a player (analog connection to the receiver). However, when I got a pre/pro with significantly better DACs, jitter control clocking, and algorithmic upsampling, I was astonished at how much better the CD listening experience became using the CD player as a transport feeding the pre/pro with a digital connection.

The DACs and other CD signal enhancements I have enjoyed with my pre/pro (which replaced a nice mid-fi receiver) are somewhat equivalent to the benefits you would derive from adding a high quality external DAC unit to your setup. In fact, reviews of the pre/pro compared it favorably to a highly regarded stand-alone DAC that many owners of a couple of other brands of pre/pro had been adding to their setups to enjoy an improved level of refinement in CD playback. To get the same performance boost from an "upgraded" CD transport would have been far more expensive.

Unless we are talking something like the $20,000 Linn CD-12, once the disc is in playback position, the performance between a single play transport and a jukebox in transport-only mode (bypassing the jukebox's internal DACs) is minimal, to my ears anyway. As for the Sony being any good as a transport, as long as it is still functioning properly and assuming it doesn't introduce excessive jitter, it should work fine as a transport.

BTW, in comparative listening I have not found the sound of a $3,000 or even an $8,000 transport enough better than a $1,000 jukebox-in-transport-mode to make the price difference worthwhile. It was only by going up to the rarified heights of a transport like the Linn, (in which case, the comparison is hopelessly in the Linn's favor), :>) that there was enough of a perceivable positive jump in sound quality to say that if it had been in a price range I could afford, that I would consider it.

If it is possible to borrow an external DAC to connect into your system on a trial basis, you might want to give that a try to see if you can hear a difference before committing to a purchase. (It might take trials of more than one brand and model to find the right one.) If a stand-alone DAC doesn't do it, a new pre/pro with better DACs might be another way to satisfy the "audiophile bug" to upgrade while getting better sound in the process.

Good luck!

Burke

[David Meek]

For a good while I was using a Sony 5-disc carousel direct into my Yamaha RX-V1. About a year and a half ago, I purchased a Musical Fidelity A3.24 external DAC and used the carousel as a transport. It worked well - I was very impressed with the jump in sound quality which to me says something as the RX-V1 has 96khz/24-bit Burr-Brown DACs (don't remember the exact chip number). The Sony was decent in its role as a transport, but I gained a bit more quality when I went with a single-disc Yamaha CDR-S1000 as my transport.

Short version? You'll probably hear a sonic improvement going with an external DAC (amount will depend on the quality of the DAC), and the Sony will work just fine as a transport.

[Andrew Pratt]

I'm using that exact same changer as my transport feeding my Rotel 1098 pre pro using a digital signal and it sound very nice and you can't beat the ease of use