A question of DAC's, misunderstanding, and deciding on whether I need one - comments please!

[Corinthian]

I mostly listen to vinyl, and to a lesser extent digital. I have a YBA Genesis 4 CD player and a Lumin X1 streamer (having previously had the D1 and been impressed enough with the X1 to upgrade). The CD player gets used the least although I do have a decent library of CDs. The amplification is Gryphon (Pandora/Legato and Mephisto). I have no experience of a standalone DAC in my system.

I'm idly wondering whether it is worth adding a DAC in some sort of configuration, so that I can get the most out of my CD player at least. With that in mind I'd be looking for a standalone DAC that's at least as good and maybe better than the onboard DAC in the Lumin. Perhaps something like the Ideon Audio Ion which seems to get very good reviews?

Developing the thought of using a CD player purely as a transport and presumably also bypassing the Lumin's onboard DAC with a digital out so that it becomes a streamer in its most simple form, does it make any sense downgrading these components (e.g. a Lumin D2 and a very simple CD transport) and spending the money on a better standalone DAC instead? I really know nothing about these so all comments are very welcome.

 

[Gregm]

I mostly listen to vinyl, and to a lesser extent digital. I have a YBA Genesis 4 CD player and a Lumin X1 streamer (having previously had the D1 and been impressed enough with the X1 to upgrade). The CD player gets used the least although I do have a decent library of CDs. (..)

(..) Developing the thought of using a CD player purely as a transport and presumably also bypassing the Lumin's onboard DAC with a digital out so that it becomes a streamer in its most simple form, does it make any sense downgrading these components (e.g. a Lumin D2 and a very simple CD transport) and spending the money on a better standalone DAC instead? I really know nothing about these so all comments are very welcome.

Why not use your current CDP as transport?
I only have one experience with an YBA cdp used as transport into my own DAC -- but it was an older model ("Passion"?). There was a significant upgrade in the sound (from FR response to the low-end energy produced, etc) which tells me the transport in that YBA is a very good one. To be more precise the YBa signal was fed into my reclocker and then into the DAC...
OK, a reclocker makes things a tad more copious - but it's absolutely worth it for digital playback

 

[Lee]

I mostly listen to vinyl, and to a lesser extent digital. I have a YBA Genesis 4 CD player and a Lumin X1 streamer (having previously had the D1 and been impressed enough with the X1 to upgrade). The CD player gets used the least although I do have a decent library of CDs. The amplification is Gryphon (Pandora/Legato and Mephisto). I have no experience of a standalone DAC in my system.

I'm idly wondering whether it is worth adding a DAC in some sort of configuration, so that I can get the most out of my CD player at least. With that in mind I'd be looking for a standalone DAC that's at least as good and maybe better than the onboard DAC in the Lumin. Perhaps something like the Ideon Audio Ion which seems to get very good reviews?

Developing the thought of using a CD player purely as a transport and presumably also bypassing the Lumin's onboard DAC with a digital out so that it becomes a streamer in its most simple form, does it make any sense downgrading these components (e.g. a Lumin D2 and a very simple CD transport) and spending the money on a better standalone DAC instead? I really know nothing about these so all comments are very welcome.

I think using your current player as a transport and buying a more current DAC makes a lot of sense. There are all sorts of choices in DACs so it would be great to know your budget...?

Also might be helpful to know the rest of your system.

 

[Corinthian]

Thank you both for your comments, sounds like the YBA should stay and be used as a transport then. To keep the Lumin X1 or does it make sense to use a cheaper Lumin with a cheaper onboard DAC chip and route through a better standalone DAC?

System is Bergmann Modi/Odin TT/arm, Hana Umami cartridge, Gryphon Legato phono, Gryphon Pandora pre amp, Gryphon Mephisto power amp, Lumin X1, YBA Genesis CD, Sonus Faber Serafino Tradition, Rel t9's and a mix of Atlas and AQ cabling.

Budget is really uncertain, I'm trying to understand what a budget of around 16k (i..e the Ideon Ion) gets in comparison to my current digital front end. I know that the answer is to demo really.

 

[Al M.]

I agree that using the CD player as transport is a good idea. I also agree with Greg that a reclocker is worthwhile. I have a reclocker from Mutec, a brand that is well known in the reclocking space. Yes, you should also not save on the digital cables, so your budget for the DAC itself shrinks, but it is worth it. Good reclocking gives a more natural sound, more "analog" if you will.

Even though theoretically the reclocker in the DAC should do the job sufficiently, in practice for the DAC getting an already reclocked signal is beneficial.

For my configuration, see my signature (if on the phone, you may have to turn it sideways in order to see it).

My DAC may be relatively cheap, but I have heard it beat, or come close to, other DACs multiple the price (on repeated occasions, in a well set up system of a friend).

 

[Corinthian]

My DAC may be relatively cheap, but I have heard it beat, or come close to, other DACs multiple the price (on repeated occasions, in a well set up system of a friend).

This is the Schiit Yggdrasil? Thanks for the recommendation. Does it sound impressive 'as is' or does it necessarily require a reclocker? This is certainly an area of HiFi where I'm well out of my depth.

 

[ecwl]

I mostly listen to vinyl, and to a lesser extent digital. I have a YBA Genesis 4 CD player and a Lumin X1 streamer (having previously had the D1 and been impressed enough with the X1 to upgrade). The CD player gets used the least although I do have a decent library of CDs. The amplification is Gryphon (Pandora/Legato and Mephisto). I have no experience of a standalone DAC in my system.

I'm idly wondering whether it is worth adding a DAC in some sort of configuration, so that I can get the most out of my CD player at least. With that in mind I'd be looking for a standalone DAC that's at least as good and maybe better than the onboard DAC in the Lumin. Perhaps something like the Ideon Audio Ion which seems to get very good reviews?

Developing the thought of using a CD player purely as a transport and presumably also bypassing the Lumin's onboard DAC with a digital out so that it becomes a streamer in its most simple form, does it make any sense downgrading these components (e.g. a Lumin D2 and a very simple CD transport) and spending the money on a better standalone DAC instead? I really know nothing about these so all comments are very welcome.

To me, it sounds like you have two problems/issues and you’re trying to mix the two up and come up with one solution which I always think is a terrible idea.

Problem #1 - You have an old CD player with a bunch of CDs that you don’t know what to do with

Problem/Issue #2 - You want to try higher end DACs to see how they sound (except it sounds like you do have a budget as you’ll need to sell X1 and replace with D2 to cover the cost?)

How many CDs do you actually have? A decent library can be 200, 800, 2000 or many more.

To me, the solution to problem #1 should always be to rip all the CDs to a hard drive so you can listen to them on Lumin X1. You can have multiple digital backups so you won’t lose them. You can more conveniently choose them from Lumin X1 instead of doing the ritual getting up from your seat and putting them in one by one. Moreover, 25% of the time, when I try to listen to my ripped CDs from the hard drive, I found out that there is a 24/96 remaster from Qobuz so I end up listening to that higher quality version instead anyway. ExactAudioCopy is free and dbPowerAmp is much faster and worth the price of admission for ripping. If you don’t want to do it yourself, pay somebody or your Lumin dealer to do it for you.

Now there are people who feel strongly that a CD player or a modern CD transport sounds better than streamer+DAC/X1. I guess if you’re committed to your CDs and have a religious belief in that, you could choose not to rip your CDs. At the end of the day, how long do you intend to listen to your CDs for? When I ripped them, I was thinking 10 years at least so the ripping of 800 CDs was worth the effort. I did buy dbPowerAmp after ripping about 200 CDs using ExactAudioCopy. Also when I started, I just loaded like 10 CDs onto my server/streamer to test it out first to make sure this is what I really want to do. And then I did it again at 50 CDs and then 100 CDs and then I realized I’m committed to doing this.

Problem/Issue #2 is much more complex. Because to me, all DAC brands sound very different particularly in the >$10,000 range. I personally love Chord and think that even Chord Qutest when properly optimally setup sounds better than the other more expensive high-end brands but you see many people rooting for Berkeley Alpha DAC, MSB, dCS, Mola Mola, Ideon, Wadax, etc. Schiit Yggdrasil is a great DAC for an MSB-like sound at a great price.

To me, you really need to be able to demo the DAC with Lumin X1 to decide what DAC you really want. But that’s a completely different question than the CD player question. Since you might end up spending a ton of money on the DAC, you really need to listen to them to make sure they’re what you like and a true improvement over the Lumin X1.

 

[Corinthian]

Thanks ecwl, lots to think about in that post. I think that you're right about problem 1, I very rarely listen to CDs and typically just find the master version of the album on Tidal via the Lumin. I probably have around 400 CDs at a guess. You're also partially right about problem 2 although I acknowledge that I'm not really sure what I'm looking for - I don't necessarily have to sell the X1 to fund a DAC, I just don't want to have redundancy in the X1 that would do nothing that a much cheaper streamer would do if using an external DAC.

 

[ecwl]

400 CDs is about 2.8GB uncompressed and probably 1.5GB with lossless compression. That would easily fit into a USB thumb drive that you can plug into the Lumin X1.

From a process engineering point of view, next time you actually put in a CD to listen on the YBA, when you’re done, move the CD next to your desktop computer. Once you see 3-5 CDs by your computer, you can start ripping them and putting them on a USB thumb drive to stick into Lumin. This will save you the hassle of burning all 400 CDs if you think you won’t be listening to most of them. Or you’ll find that you gradually started listening to 100 of them so you might as well burn them all. Just remember to make backups once you’ve ripped about 10-20 CDs since you wouldn’t want to re-rip them.

At this stage, if money is not a huge issue, I wouldn’t even think about the redundancy of X1.
If you want a different DAC sound (or a better DAC sound depending on your perspective), just demo new DACs. Once you found a DAC that you like, then you can start thinking about how to replace X1. If you’re a little lost in terms of what DAC sound you like, you can let us know what you’ve heard where that sounds good to you. The whole system though, not just the DAC (because X1 + tube amp sounds very different than X1+Boulder/Soulution/Bryston/Chord amp) . That’ll give us a general idea what DAC sound you’ll most likely prefer over the X1. My gut feeling says you’ll like R2R DACs more so DACs along the lines of Schiit Yggdrasil, Denafrips, TotalDAC, MSB are probably your cup of tea given your preference for vinyl + Gryphon + Sonus Farber. But I have seen some people like you prefer DSD DACs like Mola Mola Tambaqui, Emm Labs/Meitner, Linn, PS Audio, Lampizator. I actually wouldn’t recommend you Chord DACs even if it’s my personal favorite.

 

[Corinthian]

400 CDs is about 2.8GB uncompressed and probably 1.5GB with lossless compression. That would easily fit into a USB thumb drive that you can plug into the Lumin X1.

From a process engineering point of view, next time you actually put in a CD to listen on the YBA, when you’re done, move the CD next to your desktop computer. Once you see 3-5 CDs by your computer, you can start ripping them and putting them on a USB thumb drive to stick into Lumin. This will save you the hassle of burning all 400 CDs if you think you won’t be listening to most of them. Or you’ll find that you gradually started listening to 100 of them so you might as well burn them all. Just remember to make backups once you’ve ripped about 10-20 CDs since you wouldn’t want to re-rip them.

At this stage, if money is not a huge issue, I wouldn’t even think about the redundancy of X1.
If you want a different DAC sound (or a better DAC sound depending on your perspective), just demo new DACs. Once you found a DAC that you like, then you can start thinking about how to replace X1. If you’re a little lost in terms of what DAC sound you like, you can let us know what you’ve heard where that sounds good to you. The whole system though, not just the DAC (because X1 + tube amp sounds very different than X1+Boulder/Soulution/Bryston/Chord amp) . That’ll give us a general idea what DAC sound you’ll most likely prefer over the X1. My gut feeling says you’ll like R2R DACs more so DACs along the lines of Schiit Yggdrasil, Denafrips, TotalDAC, MSB are probably your cup of tea given your preference for vinyl + Gryphon + Sonus Farber. But I have seen some people like you prefer DSD DACs like Mola Mola Tambaqui, Emm Labs/Meitner, Linn, PS Audio, Lampizator. I actually wouldn’t recommend you Chord DACs even if it’s my personal favorite.

Thank you - appreciate your advice! I'll check out some DACs with my system and see what happens.

 

[DasguteOhr]

400 CDs is about 2.8GB uncompressed and probably 1.5GB with lossless compression. That would easily fit into a USB thumb drive that you can plug into the Lumin X1.

From a process engineering point of view, next time you actually put in a CD to listen on the YBA, when you’re done, move the CD next to your desktop computer. Once you see 3-5 CDs by your computer, you can start ripping them and putting them on a USB thumb drive to stick into Lumin. This will save you the hassle of burning all 400 CDs if you think you won’t be listening to most of them. Or you’ll find that you gradually started listening to 100 of them so you might as well burn them all. Just remember to make backups once you’ve ripped about 10-20 CDs since you wouldn’t want to re-rip them.

At this stage, if money is not a huge issue, I wouldn’t even think about the redundancy of X1.
If you want a different DAC sound (or a better DAC sound depending on your perspective), just demo new DACs. Once you found a DAC that you like, then you can start thinking about how to replace X1. If you’re a little lost in terms of what DAC sound you like, you can let us know what you’ve heard where that sounds good to you. The whole system though, not just the DAC (because X1 + tube amp sounds very different than X1+Boulder/Soulution/Bryston/Chord amp) . That’ll give us a general idea what DAC sound you’ll most likely prefer over the X1. My gut feeling says you’ll like R2R DACs more so DACs along the lines of Schiit Yggdrasil, Denafrips, TotalDAC, MSB are probably your cup of tea given your preference for vinyl + Gryphon + Sonus Farber. But I have seen some people like you prefer DSD DACs like Mola Mola Tambaqui, Emm Labs/Meitner, Linn, PS Audio, Lampizator. I actually wouldn’t recommend you Chord DACs even if it’s my personal favorite.

I think you made a mistake with the unit of measurement 400cds× 600-700Mb ~2.7 TB. A good mobile SSD can do this if the USB port can supply 900mA of current. toshiba ssd are good not expensive.

https://www.reichelt.de/toshiba-canvio-basics-2022-4-tb-usb-3-0-hdtb540ek3ca-p342564.html?PROVID=2788&gclid=CjwKCAiA-bmsBhAGEiwAoaQNml2Xmu2qEENHzQWMBX5RpT8hq0GMfj2NtIHErEGeWE-I8ZN9oVU6ExoCUngQAvD_BwE

 

[ecwl]

I think you made a mistake with the unit of measurement 400cds× 600-700Mb ~2.7 TB. A good mobile SSD can do this if the USB port can supply 900mA of current. toshiba ssd are good not expensive.

Haha. We are both wrong. Each disc is about 0.7GB so it’ll be 280GB.

Yes, a USB stick wouldn’t work. Thanks for pointing that out.

 

[Kingrex]

Why do you listen to digital? Why do you listen to vinyl?

 

[facten]

@Corinthian I don't have nor have I heard a Lumin or YBA to offer comments on what DACs might improve the SQ over their internal DACs. That said, from my perspective in gravitating to a potentially better DAC it is important not to downgrade the SQ quality of the server or CD transport as doing so will offset some of the SQ benefit of the better DAC. Just something to maybe consider in your overall evaluation/decision,

 

[NekoAudio]

The Lumin X1 has an excellent analog output, so it really depends on whether or not you find a different DAC that you would like more than the X1. I'd suggest trying to listen to DACs before doing anything with your X1 in case you don't find one. If you do, then it could make sense to switch to a Lumin U2 (possibly with the X1 power supply upgrade) for example to stream into the DAC you prefer. Or to keep using the X1 and connect a digital output to the new DAC, retaining the option of using the X1 analog outputs.

 

[Al M.]

This is the Schiit Yggdrasil? Thanks for the recommendation. Does it sound impressive 'as is' or does it necessarily require a reclocker? This is certainly an area of HiFi where I'm well out of my depth.

Yes, it does sound impressive without a reclocker, but even better with one. The price is so cheap that a 5% restocking fee would even be worth the risk to just buy one (you get a 15 day trial period). Break-in does take a few days. I recommend the LIM version (better tha OG which I upgraded from, don't know the new MIB version).

 

[Al M.]

I for one am someone who swears by physical CD playback. Streaming that can compete is either expensive or requires great effort to get it right, at least from my experience. Usually I hear more natural playback from physical CD (in particular with reclocker), streaming tends to sound more synthetic, regardless if CD format or "hi-res".

 

[Doc76]

I for one am someone who swears by physical CD playback. Streaming that can compete is either expensive or requires great effort to get it right, at least from my experience. Usually I hear more natural playback from physical CD, streaming tends to sound more synthetic, regardless if CD format or "hi-res".

That’s been my experience with CD transport playback as well. It’s always sounded better than streaming to me. But after hearing XDMS/NSM - which granted is rather expensive to enter the Taiko sphere of technology - is more enjoyable than my CDs. I get more emotionally involved with NSM Music.

However, it’s not analogue (which I stI’ll consider superior) but IMO it’s among the very best digital sound we may hear today. However, once XDMS / NSM gets stabilized it (lots of updates I feel confident that the Taiko Team is in the process of doing) it “may“ become the future of audio! Hearing the end product will be the determiner.

 

[Gregm]

Budget is really uncertain, I'm trying to understand what a budget of around 16k (i..e the Ideon Ion) gets in comparison to my current digital front end. I know that the answer is to demo really.

I believe what that budget will get you is, "wow!".
Why not try out the Ion (since you mentioned it) - or from the same stable an EOS dac + reclocker combo