New DAC or player?


After a lot of upgrading I now think it's time to work at my (digital) source, a Marantz 63 KI. Already owning a Musical Fidelity X-Pre and X-PSU, I'm tempted by the X-DAC that appears every now and then secondhand for very reasonable prices. But would it be worth buying one? Would another DAC be better? Or is the Marantz, tweaked as it is, not really a good transport and would a new (other) player be a better idea?
Any input is appreciated.
satch

Showing 1 response by seandtaylor99

The marantz as a transport is limited by quite high levels of jitter on the digital out. I own a CD67SE and when I paired it with a Monarchy 22B DAC I heard virtually no improvement. Then I added a Monarchy DIP and the sound snapped into focus.

I like the marantz in that it's inexpensive, well built, and very reliable, but I think if you add a DAC it will have to reclock the signal. A non-reclocking DAC will probably not gain you very much.

So, having said that the DAC that is currently all the rage is the Benchmark one. I have not heard it but by all accounts (and I don't think I've read a single negative review) it is very good and has excellent reclocking.

For $1000 you would probably do worse than the benchmark.