Would adding a Dac improve the sound for my setup?

Ask yourself this question. Do you find that the music (sound stage) becomes compressed as the size of the music increases (more instruments) and does the sound stage become congested as you turn up the volume with larger scale recordings? However, when you play small scale recordings, trios, female vocals without much instrumental support behind them, the sound stage is good, well defined, etc. . .

This is your CD player. I cannot tell you if it is the DAC portion of this player or what aspect. But the AA Primo CDP has this fault. I bought one when my AA Capitole needed to be repaired and figured the Primo would give me similar, but not as good perfomance. It was fine with small scale music, but fell apart with larger scale music.

While I hate to say this to you, my recommendation would be to dump the Primo and get either a better CDP or even one that may have digital inputs. You can try a DAC, but I don't know if it will fix the problem with the AA unit or not.

What Ckoffend is discribing sounds like the OP amps in the CD player.
If you get a DAC, that will by pass the OP amps in the CD player.

Thanks everyone for the comment.
Ckoffend, it is exactly what you described. Large scale or complicated music would diminish soundstage while small scale is great.

Rbc, it does make it tough, the Primo is a good player for small scale music. I can tell you that I went to a Resolution Audio Opus 21 w/ GNSC mods (this unit has digital inputs by the way) and for not very much more money got much better results. I am not saying this is the player you should get as I don't know all your goals, etc. . . I am sure others can suggest alternatives.

As for Zmanastronomy's comments about the opamps? I can't say either way. I don't know if the Primo uses different Opamps than the Capitole and I can tell you with certainty that the Capitole never had this problem. He/she may very well know more than I about which Opamps are used and if so, he may be right???

I know I will get beat up for this, but I think the power supply in a DAC and CDP is very important (in some cases just as important as the chips used). I have never heard a really good sub 10-15 pound DAC or CDP! We all put a lot of effort into understanding the power supplies in our amps, but for some reason ignore this factor with other components. Even the best Class D amps (which for the most part I am not a fan of) have some real weight behind them as they use better power supplies.

There are a lot of good CDPs and DACs out there. Try not to fall for the flavor of the day $300 DAC - you won't be impressed. Sure, they may be better than your computer's DAC, but that's about it.

Ckoffend,
Your remarks regarding the importance of a quality power supply is absolutely correct.From all the articles,detailed reviews and interviews with serious designers I`ve read, the PS and quality of the analog circuit andI/V conversion matter greatly. These aspects seem to affect the ultimate sonics more so than what digital chip is utilized. Power supplies matter in all audio components without exception.