Question for the audiophile types

skate323k137

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Hey guys,

I'm not a huge audiophile, but I always do appreciate good sound. I'm normally a vinyl listener if I'm going to listen to a full album at home, or CD/apple music if I don't own it on vinyl.

Recently record prices are so crazy that some of my old favorite albums that I don't own, I'm grabbing on CD now instead. (Spare me the great CD vs Vinyl debate, CD's are good enough when the record costs 10-100x more IMHO). When I listen to vinyl on my receiver I use a pure/direct mode which bypasses internal digital processing and sounds fantastic. Of course for CD I can only use pure/direct mode if I'm sending an already analog/DAC'd signal to the receiver. I also have the option of digital coax.

My question is, using my Sony STR-DH590 I have a few options for CDs, and I'm wondering what would be the best:

-Use my computer (new iMac) with a USB CD drive, and bluetooth to the receiver (Where the fuck does DAC happen in this equation? is bluetooth sent as digital data to the receiver?)
-Use a CDJ1000-MK3 with RCA out (stereo analog) to the receiver and pure/direct mode
-Use a CDJ1000-MK3 digital coax out to the receiver, so that the receiver is the DAC. I think this is the recommended way in the manual for the receiver.

I'm guessing all the options will sound very good and may even be close to indistinguishable, but I'm curious the thoughts if anyone has any.
 

kuze

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Ultimately it boils down to whatever device has the better DAC, but you’ll probably want to do the digital coax out from CD player to receiver. Bluetooth is digital but lossy by nature, still it can be really convenient to play your backups that way too.
 

skate323k137

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Ultimately it boils down to whatever device has the better DAC, but you’ll probably want to do the digital coax out from CD player to receiver. Bluetooth is digital but lossy by nature, still it can be really convenient to play your backups that way too.
Yeah, I haven't found many specifics on the DACs but both should be pretty good. Good to know about Bluetooth.

Does your amp have a USB input?
It doesn't look like it.
 

terry.330

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That's weird it seems like if it has BT it would have a USB port. If you have a USB input. I'd rip all my music to lossless and do a direct connection that way.

If not then use the digital from the CDP like kuze said.
 

skate323k137

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That's weird it seems like if it has BT it would have a USB port. If you have a USB input. I'd rip all my music to lossless and do a direct connection that way.

If not then use the digital from the CDP like kuze said.
Word. I double checked, no USB. Optical, coax digital, rca, hdmi... no USB :/

All in all though it's a good receiver for what I paid for it.

I'll give digital from the CDJ a shot. Thanks guys.
 

skate323k137

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Digital coax from the CDJ to the receiver sounds great!

This got me thinking about my iMac itself... I usually bluetooth it to the receiver. If BT is lossy, I have an external USB sound blaster Xfi card with optical that I could use (my receiver has an open optical port as well).
 

GohanX

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Ultimately it boils down to whatever device has the better DAC, but you’ll probably want to do the digital coax out from CD player to receiver. Bluetooth is digital but lossy by nature, still it can be really convenient to play your backups that way too.

Pretty much this. You won't know what's best until you try every option. I have a modern Onkyo receiver in my living room with an excellent DAC, so there's no reason not to feed it a digital signal. In my office I used to have an old Pioneer receiver and I would use an old laserdisc player since the DAC on that thing made music sing, while the receiver's DAC was so-so. In one of my cars using my trusty Fiio FLAC player in the aux in sounds better than the built in CD player, in the other using a CD or a USB drive playing digital files is better.
 

Lets Gekiga In

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Hey guys,

I'm not a huge audiophile, but I always do appreciate good sound. I'm normally a vinyl listener if I'm going to listen to a full album at home, or CD/apple music if I don't own it on vinyl.

Recently record prices are so crazy that some of my old favorite albums that I don't own, I'm grabbing on CD now instead. (Spare me the great CD vs Vinyl debate, CD's are good enough when the record costs 10-100x more IMHO). When I listen to vinyl on my receiver I use a pure/direct mode which bypasses internal digital processing and sounds fantastic. Of course for CD I can only use pure/direct mode if I'm sending an already analog/DAC'd signal to the receiver. I also have the option of digital coax.

My question is, using my Sony STR-DH590 I have a few options for CDs, and I'm wondering what would be the best:

-Use my computer (new iMac) with a USB CD drive, and bluetooth to the receiver (Where the fuck does DAC happen in this equation? is bluetooth sent as digital data to the receiver?)
-Use a CDJ1000-MK3 with RCA out (stereo analog) to the receiver and pure/direct mode
-Use a CDJ1000-MK3 digital coax out to the receiver, so that the receiver is the DAC. I think this is the recommended way in the manual for the receiver.

I'm guessing all the options will sound very good and may even be close to indistinguishable, but I'm curious the thoughts if anyone has any.
I even noticed Stereophile has been reviewing CD releases instead of vinyl lately.
 

norton9478

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I had an HDCD capable receiver. I finally got it set up to play HDCD discs. Then it died two days later.
 

jeffkun34

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I have not listened to any Blu-ray audio on a good system lately but I do remember getting a chub listening to Beck’s Sea Change and Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon on SACD back in the day.
 

skate323k137

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I don't think I've even heard a blu ray audio disc. My receiver supports up to at least 4k HDMI so I suppose it would work. Seems to be a dead format though :/
 

bubba966

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Well skate i woulda said the receiver probably has the better DAC so running the digital coax to it is probably the better option but it looks like you already tried it and are happy with it. The DAC's in receivers have been better than mid-lower end optical players for a while. Though a high end disc players would certainly sound better using their DAC. A disc player generally would need to be over a few grand to have really nice DAC's in it.
 

skate323k137

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Word.

The CDJ came out in like 2006 at retail of $1300, whereas my receiver is 5ish years old on the other hand, but was not as pricy as the CDJ. I do have to wonder if the DAC in the CDJ-1000 MK3 is better than average or not, since a lot of that retail price goes into the other features on a CD turntable I'm sure. Either way the DAC in my receiver using digital coax sounds good both on pro logic II and direct modes, so overall I'm happy.
 

norton9478

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I don't think I've even heard a blu ray audio disc. My receiver supports up to at least 4k HDMI so I suppose it would work. Seems to be a dead format though :/

Not completely dead. There was a Dolby Atmos release of Abbey Road that came out last year or so.
 

bubba966

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Word.

The CDJ came out in like 2006 at retail of $1300, whereas my receiver is 5ish years old on the other hand, but was not as pricy as the CDJ. I do have to wonder if the DAC in the CDJ-1000 MK3 is better than average or not, since a lot of that retail price goes into the other features on a CD turntable I'm sure. Either way the DAC in my receiver using digital coax sounds good both on pro logic II and direct modes, so overall I'm happy.

Players in that retail MSRP usually have solid DAC's. If you get bored it might be worth trying sometime to use the CDJ's DAC, but using your setup like you're doing now is most likely better.

Like I've got a couple of nicer receivers, but I doubt either one would be better to use than the DAC in my Pioneer DV-AX10 ($6,000 MSRP). Never did try DVD-A or SACD on it, but both should be killer. I just used it as a really nice DVD player... lol
 
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