Rookie DAC vs cd Player query

[bush baby]

I have a Marantz cd5005 player with a Roksan K2 integrated amp and was wondering if using a DAC would give me any improvement in sound. The chip in the Marantz is CD4398 as far as I know and it has digital optical o/p.
Obviously it’s all very subjective but I’d be interested to hear some opinions from members plus any possible recommendations.
I wouldn’t want to be spending too much on the DAC, say up to £300, my ears ain’t that good and I’m quite parsimonious!

p.s. I have just read that digital o/p can be switched off on the Marantz for ‘better sound quality’, can this be true?

[Fergus]

I have a Marantz cd5005 player with a Roksan K2 integrated amp and was wondering if using a DAC would give me any improvement in sound. The chip in the Marantz is CD4398 as far as I know and it has digital optical o/p.
Obviously it’s all very subjective but I’d be interested to hear some opinions from members plus any possible recommendations.
I wouldn’t want to be spending too much on the DAC, say up to £300, my ears ain’t that good and I’m quite parsimonious!

p.s. I have just read that digital o/p can be switched off on the Marantz for ‘better sound quality’, can this be true?

Switching off anything that uses up the machines resources must have some benefit. Can you hear it, who knows but you’ll get the fun of switching it in and out trying!

[bush baby]

Switching off anything that uses up the machines resources must have some benefit. Can you hear it, who knows but you’ll get the fun of switching it in and out trying!

Might even reduce my electricity bill - doubt if that effect would be noticeable though 

[tabarddn]

HI, I use a Topping D50S dac ($250) & found that it improved my older Arcam SACD/CD player, which was originally around 1200 GPS. However to get the best from it you need to use it from a battery supply, simple cell phone battery back-up pack works great.
Although audio memory is very fickle, I believe it (the D50s) sounds better that the D50s a $4000 dac combo I had 20 years ago.

Cheers Derek

[ian]

I used an iFi DAC Signature for a while and it is very good.  Amazon has it for sale for £220 at the moment.  It also includes iFi's quality external power supply available as an extra for some of their cheaper DACs.

[Zleepy]

I have tried quite a few CD players in my system and I was not over the moon with any of them. Admittedly none of them was high end. Oddly enough, the one I liked the most was a very old and cheap Philips CD150.

I have been using a separate DAC for years and for spinning CD:s I use an Audiolab 6000CDT which is a transport only. It has no analog outputs. For me the combination gives a far better sound than any CD player I've tried. But again, I have not tried any higher end CDP:s. 

If you want a real banger of a DAC for cheap you should try Vlads TDA1541 tube dac which is a DIY kit. It has no toslink input though, only coaxial spdif. I made a review of it here: https://www.lencoheaven.net/forum/index.php?topic=39390.0

[bush baby]

Thanks for the replies, I thought to give Vlad’s unit a try but I tend to do a rush job on any DIY jobs and regret it later so I will give it a miss at the moment.
Any more recommendations for lowish priced units gratefully received, I will read the reviews and probably go for one of those.

[hatehifi]

Hi Mark
Maybe you would reconsider Vlad’s DAC. Zleepy is spot on. There is very little to do except mount in a box(s). Vlad’s DAC suits me just fine, atm Joni Mitchell’s Ladies of the Canyon is on and it really moves me.

Cheers!

[bush baby]

Hi Mark
Maybe you would reconsider Vlad’s DAC. Zleepy is spot on. There is very little to do except mount in a box(s). Vlad’s DAC suits me just fine, atm Joni Mitchell’s Ladies of the Canyon is on and it really moves me.

Cheers!

Oh Dear! I can see this is going to be a very tempting proposition. The lack of Toslink put me off initially but Google tells me Toslink is not so good a feature anyway.

[hatehifi]

FWIW, this has been my personal experience as well. I’ve read of some very savvy enthusiasts who are happy with Toskink but I’m no expert. I think a lot has to do with the coupling, where just the light transfer counts, and getting that right is expensive (?).

Be that as it may, Vlad’s DAC simply makes music and the emotional extent which it relays hasn’t ceased to amaze me.

Cheers

[pde2000]

I have a minidisc portable that takes toslink and sounds perfectly adequate.  I also have a dpa dac that only has coax, and a dcd 1500ii that outputs both (and no, switching off the digital out makes no difference at all).  When people rave about digital I get a bit skeptical.  There's nothing wrong with digital (unless there is something quite obvious) its just that perfection gets kind of boring.  Listening to music less often helps me most.  You can sometimes make a cd player sound better by sending the signal through a valve preamp because either it improves the signal or makes it worse, but either way my brain likes it.

[timelog]

After having few "low end" models and searching easy improvments and making some of these on players I do not see DAC update critical. There is also wievs that DAC should be not independent from disc drive control to have fluent bit feed to DAC (lower jitter ?), which is problems with old players with independent DAC chip (..like TDA1541) and separate DAC.

Having good sound with separate DAC is possible, but propably more based on separte DAC analog side quality design. Updating better quality componets on analog output side (RCA connectos,opamps,capacitors,.) of basic CD player, results can be give real improvment. Output analog side (after DAC) should not also be overcomplicated, as less componets less problems.

[bush baby]

Surprisingly (to me) a decent transport would probably cost more than I could sell my cd5005 player for!

[Zleepy]

If you can stretch it, I highly recommend the Audiolab 6000CDT. It is a fantastic transport. It made my 800€ streamer sound dull ans lifeless in comparison!

[ropie]

Updating better quality componets on analog output side (RCA connectos,opamps,capacitors,.) of basic CD player, results can be give real improvment. Output analog side (after DAC) should not also be overcomplicated, as less componets less problems.

I think I'd generally agree with this. I have owned various low-mid end CD players from Marantz, Rotel and Philips. When I tried some of them with separate DACs I always noticed a difference rather than an improvement in the sound. FWIW, I eventually ditched the DAC and just used the current CD player on its own and was happy.

My favourite CD player overall was one of my first - a CD6000 KI Signature. I never used a DAC with that but always found it to sound really nice and should probably just have stuck with that one rather than messing about with other models and DACs.