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10 year old good CD Player vs. a year old good DAC

I got my DAC (Parasound D/AC-2000 Ultra) and CD Transport (Audio Alchemy DDS Pro) combo bought brand new from a local dealer in the year 2000. I now want to upgrade the source. I have been thinking about buying a 10-15 year old CD Player such as the Esoteric X-03 or buying a one-year old modern DAC such as the PS Audio Directstream DAC. Both are similarly priced. If I buy the Esoteric I will have to get rid of both the Parasound and the Audio Alchemy. But if I get a nice modern DAC, I can still keep the AA transport (connecting it to the new DAC) to play all the CDs that I have collected for the past 25 years or so. In addition I can use my PC or smartphone to play music on the DAC via USB ports and perhaps enjoy streaming music via the internet.
So my question is... which would be the better choice for me to take? Esoteric X-03 or PS Audio Directstream DAC?Which one would sound better - the Esoteric CD Player or the PS Audio DAC/AA Tranport? Thank you for your input.
Oh and, does anyone know how to change user names? I came up with this lame user name without thinking at all.
jkbtn
jkbtn OP
71 posts
 
Thanks for the responses. I will probably get the DAC but will do more research on it before I spend money.
rja's avatar
rja
2,356 posts
 
Is that Audio Alchemy transport the one with the Pioneer mechanism that plays CDs read side up?
jkbtn OP
71 posts
 
Yes, it is. Almost 20 years old but it's still working flawlessly. Never been serviced!In fact, I have never had a chance to compare the AA DDS PRO to other transports using the same DAC. But I did compare its sound quality with some one-box CD players like the Classe CDP102 and the SONY XA7ES. This AA and Parasound combo sounded a million times better... just sounded so much better. Hopefully be able to use this AA transport for 10 more years with a new modern DAC that I'm going to get.
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