CD player how much to invest

I have been looking at a USB DAC. A DAC that USB and coax and maybe spdif optical etc.

The best contenders so far are Audio Note and Pink Faun, maybe BMC as well. But what else do I need. A harddisk device I guess, something like a NAS then we need an interface and a DAC. My main problem is the interface. Should that be a laptap or something else. But I want something with decent size screen so I can browse my CD collection.

lets look at the question based upon economics.

a sale is made when buyer and seller agree on a price.

there is a basic principle that i learned in first college eco. course:

the value in use=the value in exchange.

only you can answer your own question.

listen to and compare digital hardware. at what price points, does the value in exchange exceed the value in use ? this is a subjective question which depends upon your ears and your wallet.

as an example, i won't buy a merceds or audi because i think they are overpriced. it is not a question of whether i can afford something. i refuse to pay more than i believe something is worth. if the seller won't meet my price.

the principle its implicit in most transactions, although there are some wealthy people who will buy something if they can afford it, regardless of price and value.

in conclusion, you will spend as much money, given a budget constraint until the price exceeds its intrinsic value, as determined by you.

no one can assign a dollar amount for you.

i use this principle whenever possible. obviously, it doesn't always work in the supermarket. it can be applied to eating out at a restaurant or going to a movie. this principle works well when applied to expensive products.

Look for a used Cary 303/300. Should be able to find one for less than $2,000 USD
09-24-10: Jburidan

I have all Cary electronics (SLP 05 preamp and A306 amplfier) I ran them balanced into the Cary 303/300 player. I no longer own it. I like Cary products and wanted to love it, but the 303/300 was sonically very disappointing in my setup.

Today I was at the an audio show there I heard the Pink Faun DAC 2 connected to a Mac mini. The sound was better then I had expected. Streaming audio had come a long way it seems. I spoke with the technical man behind Pink Faun. He preferred the burr brown PCM 1704 over the Sabre DAC. He said the Sabre has a lot of nice features but the burr brown sound better. The DAC doesn't have any digital filtering or oversampling it does upsample, I was explained why this was good. It sounded plausible. I'll think I will try one out for a few days.

Hi Mordante, thanks for the update on Pink Faun's DAC2, I went to the white paper on Triple M's homepage straight away. Back in May when I bought my DAC3, Clemens had told me that they were building a reference DAC, I didn't know they were showing it in Utrecht (makes me regret even more I couldn't go). Did you speak with Mattijs there?
Btw, I seem to recall you were looking for power cords some time ago. Pink Faun's PC line are quite superb, should be a perfect match for both drive and DAC (makes me wonder how good the new PCX cords may be ... at a price, sadly).
Have fun auditioning the DAC2, I'm sure you will.