New CD player, Transport or DAC?


Finally got my system where it sounds great to me. Have Primaluna power amp and preamp. Power amp now has KT 120 power tubes. Have a great turntable and a pair of Klipsch Cornwall's with Crites crossovers and a pair of Dynaudio 1.1 monitors. Some room treatment now and working on cables. My weak piece now is my CD player. Older CDs still sound bad. Newer well recorded CDs sound great. I have been using a Marantz 6005 CD player. I wanted to make some of my rare albums into CDs so I dragged out a 15 year old at least Pioneer cd recorder. Hooked it up and my wife and I did an a-b between it and the Maranrz and neither of us could tell a difference. So in 15 years CD players haven't improved or are they both mid fi CD players? I do have an Emotiva dac and some things sound marginally better through it and some things sound worse. Long story to get to my point. Should I invest in s high dollar CD player (I have probably 6000 CDs) or a high quality DAC or a DAC and transport. Most of my listening is done on CDs. My albums sound great through my system but I don't have room to replace CDs with lps. Any suggestions of brands to look at or things to consider? Thanks for any help.
128x128dylanfan
Dylan,

I agree with Melbguy, mesch, and Lowrider - go for the great DAC and use the 6005 as a transport for now. I would recommend an earlier used EMM - in my view, better than the PS Audio DSD for much less (~$3.5k, which is around your budget, but a huge step up in performance from where you are now).

Best of luck.
Rzado, as you're referring to a discontinued Emm product, perhaps it would
be helpful if you mention specific models?
Melbguy1,

Sure - the DCC2 in particular is what I had in mind, although the DAC6 would also be a good choice.

Well I bought a Wyred 4 Sound dac2 from a guy in Texas. Not one that was recommended but got a good deal on it and it gets great reviews. Gonna try this and see what happens. Thanks for all the help and advice
Congrats on that good deal Dylan, let us know your first impressions once you get it connected!