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Using a lap top cd drive instead of highend cd player

I play cd's through my laptops on board cd drive to take advantage of my Audionote 3.1 DAC. To me it makes sense that this is as good or better than using a higher end CD player.  I would hazzard a guess that few cd players have a digital converter equal to my Audionote.

Or am I missing something here.


128x128pkvintage
pkvintage's avatar
pkvintage OP
57 posts
 
I should also add that I have never heard a high end CD player.
three_easy_payments's avatar
three_easy_payments
211 posts
 
Does the Audionote 3.1 have an asynchronous USB input? I guess that would eliminate the jitter which would typically be the issue with this set up.  
sbank's avatar
sbank
2,038 posts
 
Well, not disagreeing that it will sound better than many CD players, but if you change the question to how do I get best sound out of my computer as a digital source then you need to consider:
- linear power supplies vs. typical wall warts
- type of cabling and specific cables of your chosen format 
- steps you can take to minimize electrical noise and RFI getting to your dac (e.g. google "Regen") 
- music playing software
- ss vs. mechanical spinning drives
- what O/S you run and all the non-audio processes that run and add noise to the music signal
I'm probably forgetting about 6 things, but you get the idea. It's a deep subject and few computer audio setups sound alike. Cheers,
Spencer
pkvintage's avatar
pkvintage OP
57 posts
 
So I am missing something.

Apologies. I failed to mention I run a Prodigy cube (converter side only) in between the laptop and the DAC. A 75 ohm coax cable connects the Prodigy to the DAC and and USB from laptop to prodigy. The AN does not have a usb input. 

Standard Win 10. SS HD and foobar 2000 as a player.

Audionote DACs only 1x upsample.

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