why still buy a cd player?


I'm relatively new to the audiophile world, and I'm trying to understand why anone who has a sonos system (or alike) and has stored his files on a server in a lossless format would still want to buy a CD player for best audiophile music quality.

here's my thinking:

if a lossless rip format is used, the data stored after ripping on a digital hard-disk is as good as cd quality - by definition-,...

with sonos i can get that data anywhere in the house without errors

so the only thing that matters is the conversion from digital to analog and the follow-up amplification.

Now,

i can go from sonos to a pre-amp using a digital port, then the pre-amp determines the DAC quality.

or I go from sonos to an amp after using the DAC in the sonos (and use the analog connection to the amp)

If I were to have a CDP connected digitally to a pre-amp, the pre-amp DAC would determine the quality of the sound. In that case I might as well skip the CDP and fall back on my sonos and connect it digitally to my pre-amp.

So the only benefit from a CDP player would come from using the DAC and thus the analog out of the CDP. Is my logic correct?

If this is correct, than I would only have better sound quality with a CDP if the DAC of the CD player exceeds the quality of the DAC of my sonos and of my pre-amp. Is my logic correct?

If it is, and since I can imagine that most $500k CD would have better DAC than a sonos, the real comparison is to figure out of the DAC of my pre-amp is better than the DAC of my CDP. If it does, than no need for a cdp, just use sonos. If it doesn't then a cdp would still provide better quality. Is that correct?

So, the decision to by a
I can imagine that a good cdp would exceed the
mizuno

Showing 1 response by kgturner

i use a squeezebox 3 connected to a 47 labs shigaraki dac. i could not tell the difference between the sb3 and the shigaraki transport i was previously using. the 47 labs transport and the sb3 were compared using a supratek dual cabernet preamp, yamamoto a-08s, and von schweikert dB99-SE speakers.

no matter how many times i tired, i could not tell the two apart. all my cd's are ripped to .wav using eac. the way i saw it, if the sound quality is identical, why keep the more expensive and less convenient piece of equipment? now, i'm considering upgrading to a transporter/emm dcc2 combo. i should be able to head to head my 47 labs dac and the emm dcc2's dac.