CD advice please....

Hi everyone, been a while since I was around here, been a while since I had a hifi

Lots has happend since I was last here, I've moved twice, changed profession and even got married

I've started to build a hifi again from humble beginnings, I was given an old Rotel cd and amp with a pair of Kef coda speakers which awoke my love of music and hifi. A year on and I have managed to source myself a pair of Monitor Audio studio 20SE's (which I never got over selling) and added a cyrus 8vs amp and Cambridge audio dacmagic (current version). I'm now looking to upgrade the cd end but not sure what to do.

Firstly I'm only looking at cyrus offerings to match the amp, sonically I would expect them to partner well and aesthetics are important too (sorry, married now).

My options are to keep the dac magic and partner it with a cyrus transport which I can pick up for £450-550 depending on spec. I like the sound of the dacmagic and expect it to come alive with a better power supply and a few better internal components (caps, op amps and wires?).

Second option is to sell the the dacmagic and use the extra to buy a current version CD6SE or spend a bit more for the CD8SE, will either of these sound as good/better than the transport/dacmagic route? Aesthetically this is a mrs RSand pleasing option.

Sorry for the long post and absence.

 

Hi and welcome back.

Are you certain you need a CD player?
I ask as since you were last here, computer audio has evolved and improved hugely to become a prefered method for many people.
It would involve ripping your existing CD collection to a computer hard drive and then streaming this into your Dacmagic - you can do it via several solutions either wired or wirelesss.

If that is an option you'd consider, many here will be happy to advise on the options available.

If you definitely want to stay with CD I'd personally sell the Dacmagic and sink the funds into a good modern Cyrus player.
They sound excellent and the performance will be near as dammit what you can get from the Cambridge.

On the Cambridge unit itself, I wouldn't modify it. I have one at home and though it isn't the unit I use daily, it gives superb performance in stock form IMO.

 

These are great points, thanks Rob. I would definitely consider a server over or as well as a cd player, I guess the beauty of keeping the dacmagic and buying a transport is I could still add a server at a later date.

My main concern is I don't want to buy a transport for the dacmagic if a single box CD6SE or 8 is going to sound better. I have to buy used so don't have the luxury of demoing both setups.

Can a computer dvd spinner really convert cd's to the same standard?

 

I would say that the dvd spinner can do the job so long as the software driving the process is also good enough.
Discussions rumble on about the merits of various software but nearly all of it has decent error correction built in, slowing the drive or making multiple read passes where required. Theoretically this gives better results than the real time processing on a conventional CD drive/player.

FWIW I think something like iTunes does a perfectly good job but there are many other options, most of them free to try/use.

 

Keep the DAC-Magic, it's state of the art, no need to mod it.

If you want a matching system then I'd suggest buying an older Cyrus CD player (I use a CD7) and using the digital output to the DAC-Magic. A stand-alone Cyrus CD won't sound better. If the cost isn't a lot different then you can get a Cyrus transport like the XT.

Here is the little system I am using at the moment. The DAC-Magic also connects to an Apple Airport Express that allows me to wirelessly stream my music from a netbook using Spotify (with 400GB of my CDs stored on it too) to the DAC. Actually my netbook is touch-screen too so I can access all the music is a nice ergonomic way.

 

Simon, how is the DM performing?

I forgot you still had it!

 

On my measurement bench it does the best of any DAC or CD player I have seen. In my system it get a little upset being fed by the Airport Express because of it's weak optical output. With the 5m optical cable it was frequently loosing lock, but with a 1m cable it is okay.

Sound wise it is as expected, the same as most other decent DACs or CD players. I was a bit confused when I first connected a 12V PSU since it takes about 3 seconds to light up from pressing the power button. I thought it didn't like my PSU. I'm running it on a 50VA 12VAC TX. It actually runs about 14V though.

 

EAC and Dbpoweramp are the current rippers du jour for PC users, Max or XLD for Mac. For maybe 99 out of 100 discs, you won't need the sort of belt-and-braces approach of these rippers and they will just slow down the ripping process.

Rob's right in that most of the media player software packages have almost all the ripping and error correction you'd ever need built in, but not all of them have the error correction turned on in their default state (iTunes is particularly bad for this). The 'almost' bit is the for that one in a hundred discs that needs some serious TLC.

Some argue the media players sound different (some even argue that lossless codecs sound different, but I can't see how), but there seems no real reason why that should be the case. A couple of new ones load a cut-down version of the computer's OS, a small media player and the file itself into RAM and act as a memory player (Ayrewave, Pure Music and Amarra). Whether this bestows any sonic improvement remains to be seen, though.

I'd chose J.River if you are on PC. Not because it does anything wonderful sonically, but its album wrangling makes sense.

You should also consider the alternatives - Sonos and Squeezebox (Linn, Naim and Meridian/Sooloos are a bit out of your league right now). Sonos gets scant coverage by the audio fraternity (presumably because it 'only' copes with 16-bit, 44.1kHz files and cannot send 24/96 or greater files down its wireless network), but it's robust, simple to install and easy to drive. SB is slightly more demanding of installation and I don't think has the same ease of use, but is the hi-fi buff choice. Both need a computer or server running when the music is playing, but that computer need not be in the same room as the system (a useful bonus when HDD fan noise is taken into account).

Personally, I think any of these solutions (PC and DAC, Sonos, SB) can be every bit as good as a CD player. The advantage they have over real-time CD play is a bit of a red herring, IMO. On-the-fly Reed-Solomon error correction in CD players was pretty much perfect by the mid-1980s and completely transparent by the early 1990s. Unless you are dealing with a disc that takes hours to rip and is unplayable on CD players, there's no sonic improvement.

 

Dac Magic 'state of the art' you two must really get out more.
Keith.

 

Not sure what Fnuckle's thoughts are on this but I'd also strongly recommend buying an external DVD drive if ripping a large collection.

Two reasons:

- Most seem more robust than laptop drives.
- Ripping hundreds of discs over a short period is going to stress the internal drive.

Externals cost all of about £30.
I had 700 discs to rip and it was money well spent.

 

Ok, so counter it.

BTW I think he means the measured performance in this instance, so what have you measured Keith and can we please view the data?

 

Surely someone who gets out more wouldn't worry about such things?

..anyway got to go now, going out lol.

 

Hi Rob,

If you look at the measurements that Paul Miller did on the DCS stuff, you will see it does measure better in most areas. If I remember, off the top of my head, a factor 10 in a number of areas.

I'll check when I get in.

SCIDB

 

Hi Rob (rsand),

Good to hear from you again.


SCIDB

 

Hey Dean, good to hear from you too mate

Thanks for everyones help so far, an Airport Express into the DM sounds like a plan, it would be the dvd in my 2010 mac pro doing the ripping duties.

 

Yes. I have a Samsung drive for that reason. Cheap, external drives don't seem to last as long as a desktop model, but it's easier to swap them out.

 

Is something like a squeezebox duo played through the DM a step in the right direction?

I think I would still like a cd player though or is this something I'll just stop using once the SBDuo is up and running? If I were to pick up an older cyrus cdp is there much real listening SQ difference between using one of their dedicated transports and a lower end cdp

I notice the cd8 and xt both have the option to use a psx power supply but the cd6 doesn't, is the ability to add a psx a valuable consideration?

 

I ended up picking up a new unopened Cyrus 6SE latest spec for silly money. All seems fine except I was shocked to see it doesn't have a coax output WTF? Even bargain players have that? It does have optical out though.

On comparing the SE dac with the DM I find the DM has the edge, voices are more natural and there is more detail and overall space/air to its sound. The base is no deeper/bigger on either to my ears. Its a not huge difference but the DM is better. I'm wishing I got an older spec 8 now with coax out or is optical just as good these days?

I'm using a very cheap 5m long ebay optical cable that I had lying about is it worth spending more on a shorter/better one?

Its also fair to say the 6SE at 1 week old is probably still running in but, I don't expect the air and detail to improve?