Suggest an individualised upgrade path for me.

[prem]

SachinChavan, a good transport is neutral. The sound signature you are looking for is determined by the downstream chain. I am not saying you don’t need a good transport. But a r2r dac is what is going to give you more of what you want. If you ask me, a good transport + R2R dac + amp + Harbeth/BBC Monitor is more likely to give you what you want from your music.

 

[Kannan]

sometimes in audio, serendipity works like a charm. One of the finest CD players I have heard is the Sony PS1 (what was then called by its full name Playstation).
Other than that I like TDA1541 based players like the CD960, Shanling, one Rotel and Marantz (94mkii I think), but these will now be impossible to get.

I think marantz and Cambridge are two companies who have not lost faith is making CD players and you will not go wring with either of their latest offerings.

 

[prem]

Kannan, I think Cambridge uses delta sigma dac. The delta sigma characteristics is not what he’s looking for.

The 1541 chip, as you rightly said, is up his alley. Other options are some Burr Brown r2r chip or the 1543 chip or the customised ones by Metrum and a few others

 

[Hari Iyer]

Sachin, I have had the opportunity of listen to your setup multiple occasions and I feel that you should consider @Kannan suggestion of large fullrange speaker for the liquid and sweet mids/ highs. I always felt that your speakers sound a bit recessed and had less air and changing ICs and speaker wires made things worser for you. Also the castle knight has too much emphasis on the bottom end which tends to somewhat mask the mids and highs. You already are using a silver plated copper speaker wire and that does not help you to gain airy highs. Intimacy and presence in mids gets diluted in your speakers. Again that is my personal opinion with my aging / abused ears.

 

[Deleted member 15865]

Sachin, I have had the opportunity of listen to your setup multiple occasions and I feel that you should consider @Kannan suggestion of large fullrange speaker for the liquid and sweet mids/ highs. I always felt that your speakers sound a bit recessed and had less air and changing ICs and speaker wires made things worser for you. Also the castle knight has too much emphasis on the bottom end which tends to somewhat mask the mids and highs. You already are using a silver plated copper speaker wire and that does not help you to gain airy highs. Intimacy and presence in mids gets diluted in your speakers. Again that is my personal opinion with my aging / abused ears.

Hari, and we differed in our assessment of the system. You hear less treble than I do. I feel the sound is sufficiently airy and the IC and speaker cables have helped it. I like the sound signature of my amp speaker combination - it suits me.

How I’d love if some more FMs could listen to the system to have their views on it!

 

[Deleted member 15865]

I have an Apple CD drive, which now I am going to connect to my MacBookPro (13”) and then connect it to the CXN DAC and rest of the system. And then see where it stands with respect to the the previous performances stated earlier in this thread.

I tried this. And the sound through the MacBookPro playing CD and connected to the CXN via USB was decidedly poor in comparison with the CXC-CXN combo in almost all respects - dynamics, openness, projection (recessed). Through the tonality is largely maintained (I am concluding that’s more a feature of amp-speakers), the overall sound felt underwhelmingly prosaic.

I am concluding that all I need is a good CD transport to use with my CXN DAC, or a CDP. Unfortunately, not many DACs are available below a lac which can prove to be an upgrade. I could explore CD options like Rega Apollo, Audiolab 8200 CD or Creek Evo 50CD, or Cyrus CDi, but putting in a lac for a sideways shift doesn’t sound pragmatic.

I shall keep looking for vintage CD players that I can use as CDP or transport in my system. I know they can fail, but i’d buy if I get a good bargain.

As I said right at the beginning of this thread, I don’t feel a compulsion to upgrade. I am in no mood to junk all or most of what I have. My system is just two years old, and some of the components less than a year old and while high sensitivity speakers combined with SET amps remain the way for me to go, I shall take my time on it. I can see how I feel about it say two years hence. After all, I don’t change my car the moment I get to see or ride in a better one. Music is an experience, and apart from the system and it’s sound, one’s exploration of music, quality of content, ability to sit through an entire album. room layout and comfort, listening together with family/friends and many other factors contribute to the experience. And I seek to enrich the overall experience.

Thanks everyone for your inputs. I have gained a lot and it will help me not just upgrade my system in due course, but even appreciate other systems better.

 

[Hari Iyer]

Hari, and we differed in our assessment of the system. You hear less treble than I do. I feel the sound is sufficiently airy and the IC and speaker cables have helped it. I like the sound signature of my amp speaker combination - it suits me.

How I’d love if some more FMs could listen to the system to have their views on it!

If you consider your setup to be airy, then I should seriously consider an audiogram test asap.

 

[arj]

As I said right at the beginning of this thread, I don’t feel a compulsion to upgrade. I am in no mood to junk all or most of what I have. My system is just two years old, and some of the components less than a year old and while high sensitivity speakers combined with SET amps remain the way for me to go, I shall take my time on it. I can see how I feel about it say two years hence. After all, I don’t change my car the moment I get to see or ride in a better one. Music is an experience, and apart from the system and it’s sound, one’s exploration of music, quality of content, ability to sit through an entire album. room layout and comfort, listening together with family/friends and many other factors contribute to the experience. And I seek to enrich the overall experience.

Good place to be in and the right state of mind Not to upgrade..untill you feel you feel the compulsion.

 

[Deleted member 15865]

Ok friends, here’s an update from my end.

It was established through the discussion and experiments listed in this thread that it was the source that I needed to work upon/upgrade, especially the CD transport. So I was on a lookout for options to my CXC.

Most of the newer CDT and CDPs that could ace the CXC would have costed me above a lac, and I wouldn’t have been able to test them out in my system. Sony vintage players was an option, and I might even try it out sometime in future.

But as luck would have it, a friend had a second-hand Primare CD31 CD player lying idle whose DAC section had issues. And I needed a transport and not the DAC, so it suited. The CD31 is a well-reviewed player from about 7-8 years ago (was priced above $2000 back then). We decided to try it in the place of CXC, still using my CXN’s DAC.

Immediately we could see some improvements. The sound from the Primare transport was decidedly more musical , with better timing. It was also sweeter and more soothing than the CXC which now sounded sharper and shouty in comparison. Also the tonality seemed truer. A flicker of hope! But then I wasn’t entirely convinced. Because the sound through the Primare lacked openness in comparison and didn’t really add any more details than the CXC. The soundstage seemed lower and the background not quite as black as the CXC. I also sensed some clarity missing in the bass. So I wasn’t sure if it would prove to be a satisfactory substitute/upgrade to the Cambridge CXC transport.

But today we decided to use the balanced out of the Primare CD31 instead of the coaxial out we used earlier. Now, remember the CXN doesn’t have a balanced digital in. So we retained the Nordost Silver Shadow coaxial cable I was using all along and just add a XLR adapter to the end that went into the Primare’s balanced out. The other end went into the CXN’s unbalanced coaxial in as usual.

And I am very glad to report the significant improvement this yielded. While largely retaining all the improvements above reported above, the sound was now also a lot more open (a tad more than even my CXC) and the soundstage came back up. The missing fun factor had returned. The bass was also now clearer which helped the vocals to shine further. Also the foreground and background sounds were better balanced/in harmony now.

So, overall a significant upgrade to the sound from the system at hardly any cost. And interestingly from a DVD laser pickup in the Primare (DVD-ROM DVS DSL-710A). How can that be? How can a DVD laser pickup be better than that of a dedicated transport (I couldn’t find which laser pickup the CXC uses). But then, I’d enjoy the mangoes without counting the stones.

We are going to try connecting the Primare with the CXN through a balanced cable (with adapter at CXN coaxial end) and see if that further improves the sound. But even otherwise, I am happy with the improvement in sound already obtained. Will I still go for a vintage Sony etc? I don’t know, let time decide that.