CD Player/Transport/DAC ?

tapeshc

This forum is frequented by people who know these things inside out but I am having tough time understand these terms like a common man, Who only loves music and knows nothing. Please help me understand these terms.

I think I know whats a CD Player. It reads and uses DACs to convert Digitaly read data to Analog signals and then sends it to Analog Outputs. In this case it uses its stereo/Dolby decoding. correct ?

If you are using Digital out, it works like a reader and just sends out digital signal out. Works like a reader. Correct ?

Whats Transport ?

DAC: Using Digital input you give it digital signals read with a CD player and it will convert the signla using better its better DAC to convert it in to Analog Signal. Correct ?

Jitter, whats it ?

So here I am confused to understand that whether I am getting max out of my CD Player. I have a Sony-ES 300 megachager or I am missing something.

danger boy

I'm probably not the right person to tackel this.. but here is what little i know about DAC's, transports, jitter, clocks, etc.

all CD player come with at least analog Left & Right RCA outputs. you hook those up to your receiver/pre amp with those two RCA's.

a little higher up on the chain are CD player with an additonal outputs.. usually digital outputs.. ie: coax and/or optical or both.

all CD players have built in DAC's (digital to analog converters) in them. a transport on the other hand does not have any DAC's built it. They rely on a external DAC to do the digital conversion to analog.

If you have a transport and use an external DAC.. it would be hooked up like this.

transport to DAC using a digital cable, from DAC to receiver using a analog RCA cables.

some people say that an external DAC sounds better than most DAC's that are built into CD players. esp the lower end CD players. I use a DAC that has two tubes built into it. It clears up the sound... much more so than if i didn't use a external DAC.

I was skeptical about external DAC's myself.. really, a DAC is a DAC is a DAC.. right? I was wrong of course. DAC's can really improve the overall sound of CD's quite a bit.

Jitter and clocks I not up on those two items. Someone else can better answer those.

What kind of cables are you using from your Sony CD player to your receiver.. cables can also improve the sound coming from a CD player.

tapeshc

Thanks for responding. It does clear up some confusions I had.

I am using Cardas Neutral Ref. RCA interconnects.

Are there any DACs that dont cost much but make a diff. thats audible.

Thanks
Tapesh

danger boy

take a look at these Scott Nixon DAC

about half way down on the Scott Nixon web page you'll find simple DAC for very little money. That's about the least expensive DAC you can buy new.

also check out Chanel Islands Audio for a inexpensive DAC as well.

hope this helps. DAC's can go way up in price from there. you can also look for used ones on Ebay.

newsman

Here how it is.

Stand alone CD player consist of transport + DAC.
When using digital out to a receiver or external dac - you using your CD player as a transport only.
Job of a transport is to read data off CD and transmit bytes to external source. Job of DAC(digital to analog converter) is to convert bytes into analog signal.

Quality of transport in my opinion varies only so slightly, mainly the difference is in their error correction ability. In hi-end world there a quite a few companies that offer transports only machines(CD players with no dac). DAC on the other hand vary vastly just because there are many ways of reproducing analog signal from digital stream.

Cheap CD players have cheap DACs and usually using them as transports only plugged into receiver/preamp results in a better sound because the later most likely will have better DACs. With higher end CD players you have to experiment. For example I have a thousand dollar Rotel RCD991 CD player and no receiver's DAC will better then one that's built in. However there are some stand alone DAC's that might better it.
Hope it helps.

Edit: Oops , looks like question was already answered.

Gary Robertson

In my opinion i sometimes find that the light beam cannot get a straight shot because it can be interrupted by a scratch or uneven surface on the disc or many other interferiences and as the light beam is wiggleing is leads to a muddy inaccurate sound reproduction because it can't pick up all the detail in the music.. Sometimes it can be a very slight (but noticeable) gurgle type affect in the music--Some people may never even notice it, but to the trained ear it can be quite annoying..This is not the only reason by far for jitter but just one of them.. Sometimes having a speaker too close to the unit can affect the sound also..