What DAC to use with a Sony XA7ES

Dave,
I have some unterminated copper/silver clad wire in Teflon that you could try.
Lak

Lak,

I should have known, you have more extra gear, cables, interconnects, speakers, etc then any 3 audio stores I know of. I will touch base with you.
Thanks,
Dave

Dave, I think you will waste money if you get a cheap dac. I beleive that to beat your player, you have to spend doube of what the player costs, as far as a new source component. I don't know your speaker cables, never heard them, but if you want faster sound and more detail, plus more controlled bass, you may want to try Audience AU24 speaker cables or Acoustic Zen HologramII speaker cables. I think your interconnects are fine. I have the same ones. They do have nice bass, but also are pretty detailed. I'd suggest looking at speaker cables. Also, power cords could bring a nice improvement. If you didn't upgrade PC on your player, I'd recommend Audience powerChord. Works good with digital. What integrated are you using? Is it tubed or SS? Does it accept balanced interconnect? Id yes, you may want to try Sony balanced.

Auphile1 seems to believe the answer to all audio issues is new or different wire. It's a constant theme. Wire change is one approach. It's not the only approach.

I hear differences in wire, and I use some very expensive cabling, however the wire has not had nearly the degree of impact on the sonics of my system as have the the components themselves: amplifier, preamplifier, source, DAC.

Audphile1 also seems to endorse what he owns, and he dismisses what he doesn't. He refers pejoratively to the Paradisea DAC when he writes about cheap DACs, yet he certainly has never heard one. The price has little relation to performance in this case since the unit is made by hand in Taiwan by one man. No advertising. No middleman. No distributor. No traditional retail business model. Therefore the product is vastly less expensive than would be a DAC that's distributed through normal channels.

As I mentioned, I own a "cousin" to your Sony CD player in my Sony CDP-C77ES. The sound through the Paradisea DAC is glorious compared to the Sony's internal stock DAC. My wife noticed the same difference, and she rarely comments on the stereo.

Try whatever approach you like: new DAC, wire, whatever. Keep your mind open to new possibilities. It's the path to discovery.

Tvad, I never reffered to Paradisea DAC. I have no idea what it is.

it's that time of the month for you, ha Grant?

I always knew it.