I havn't heard a lot of different DACs, but I picked up a Benchmark resently And I my Digtial Play back has taken a leap forward. But if you can I recommend trying it by it's self without a preamp, I found it to be much better.
Time to upgrade CD transport and/or DAC?
This question has probably been asked eleventy billion times before, so forgive me if I'm not asking anything new.
For about the past 6-8 years I've been running an Audio Research CD-1 transport with a Timbre Technology DAC (balanced outputs on both). Something tells me I might benefit from replacing them with a more recent all-in-one CD player like the Cary 306/200, Ayre 7ex or Sony 777ES/9000ES--or any other equally high quality player. Or, I could simply upgrade the DAC with something more recent featuring upsampling like the Benchmark DAC or whatever.
I'm wide open to recommendations, except I'm not willing to go overboard on the $$$. Preferably, I'd buy a recent used model her on 'Gon.
Thanks for your thoughts.
For about the past 6-8 years I've been running an Audio Research CD-1 transport with a Timbre Technology DAC (balanced outputs on both). Something tells me I might benefit from replacing them with a more recent all-in-one CD player like the Cary 306/200, Ayre 7ex or Sony 777ES/9000ES--or any other equally high quality player. Or, I could simply upgrade the DAC with something more recent featuring upsampling like the Benchmark DAC or whatever.
I'm wide open to recommendations, except I'm not willing to go overboard on the $$$. Preferably, I'd buy a recent used model her on 'Gon.
Thanks for your thoughts.