CD upgrade.

Hello James.

Ayon makes tubed equipment that has many talking about. Their CD players are said to be fantastic. Also their DAC, which also has a fantastic volume stage. Actually, some or their CD players also have this feature.

Esoteric X03SE would be a very nice CD player, for the money. As Tomcy6 said above, I doubt you would find it edgy. Please keep in mind there are underlying arguments about spinning discs vs computer audio being better, so you are likely to get people getting on their soapbox. Just be aware. Likely someone who already replied will say the Linn will beat any Esoteric...fine. Just read around. BTW, I don't spin disks anymore, but I do belive there are fantastic CD players around.

A very nice DAC I think is Aesthetix (tubes), Berkeley Audio (SS), Lampizator (tubes), to name some. If I knew I was only going to spin discs I would probably get a Accustic Arts CD transport and DAC (German, SS). Be aware that computer audio, while it opens a number of doors, also has a steep learning curve and is still quirkier than spinning disks.

I hope this helps.

James,

Regarding the claim of the Olive, as you increase the sampling rate (from 44.1 to 96khz) and word length (16 to 24 bit) you greatly increase the amount of data being stored. This does not result in anywhere near a proportional increase in sound quality though.

The Olive is designed for someone to rip their cds to and I think it upsamples them. This will give you maybe a small improvement in sound quality, maybe not, but not nearly as much as a file that was recorded at a higher sampling rate and bit depth (96/24 for example) and delivered to you at that same resolution through SACD or high-res download. Some people think that even high-res files are not that much of an improvement over cds. The Absolute Sound has an article on that very subject in the July/August issue.

IMHO, computer audio has not developed to the point that most people should get rid of a cd player and go to computer audio exclusively. Audiofreak will vehemently disagree with me on this. I'm not anxious to rip all my cds to a server. I don't mind playing cds and I see computer audio more as a means to download and store high-res files when that market matures a little more.

Computer audio is still pretty glitchy if you are not comfortable with computers and electronic devices. I think that it will get more user friendly and cheaper in the next few years. That's why I recommended that you get a player with digital inputs at present. Do a lot of homework if you think you want to stop spinning cds and go to computer audio. I'm waiting but a lot of people have made the change and like it a lot.

Thank you, tomcy6 for the response. it is very much appreciated. I actually prefer cd playback. Would a transport and separate dac be a good idea? i dont want to actually stop spinning discs at this point. am i right in thinking the dac would serve me when i actually take the step to computer audio so would withstand that change in the future? Any ideas on a really good dac? perhaps i could use my droplet or marantz as a transport for the time being? i was looking into dacs a while ago and came across a benchmark in a shop. i could not for one moment imagine why it has the reputation it has. it sounded very ordinary, like a upper budget cd player. Any 3k ( pounds) dacs that can really deliver? Thank you.

I have a LINN Akurate CD running 24/96 and 24/192 FLAC or WAV and I access my entire library from my iPad. The files were ripped off CDs that I owned, borrowed from friends or checked out from the library. I used DbPowermap (either free or stupid cheap, I forget), to rip the CDs in.

The fact you are missing Tomcy6 is that it is the playback that makes the difference. When you stream just data from a server (NAS) or your PC to the LINN DS unit, then let the DS do the clock and D to A work, you have a SIGNIFICANT advantage over almost any CD player made. It is not a subtle difference. The salesman at the dealer here in AZ are comparing the LINN Akurate DS to CD players at the $20k level.

Understand this: once you take out the entire spinning disc, jitter, laser, power supply, etc. that is in EVERY CD player, you have made a serious leap in sound quality.

For anyone wishing to reply...do not speak on the subject unless you have actually heard a DS in comparison. I do not mean an Olive unit either... or any unit playing off a laptop via USB or other connection - THIS IS NOT THE SAME THING.

A LINN Akurate DS I meant...