Replacing a Mark Levinson CD player

[allthingsanalogue]

I’ve just purchased a Simaudio MOON 260DT Transport to pair with my Bryston BDA-2 Dac. It replaces a Melco
N100 playing 'ripped' cd's and it’s easily the best digital source I’ve ever owned.

I’d be tempted to try and fix the the ML390 though even if it means getting a clone laser mechanism

[Stranraer]

Yep. I've not given up on the Levinson, the issue's around the DAC I think and a chip needs sourcing as a start point.
I'm browsing alternatives still though, and now thinking about maybe a Benchmark DAC3 based purely on reviews and forums.
Still no idea whether this running the Audiolab 6000 gets me to 390 quality.

[Macca]

Yep. I've not given up on the Levinson, the issue's around the DAC I think and a chip needs sourcing as a start point.
I'm browsing alternatives still though, and now thinking about maybe a Benchmark DAC3 based purely on reviews and forums.
Still no idea whether this running the Audiolab 6000 gets me to 390 quality.

what's 'quality' though? It's a transport, it's just sending out digital data. You'd be hard pressed to find a dedicated CD transport that couldn't do that perfectly.

[Kember]

@Macca,

I’m sure you are absolutely right in CDT terms, but I always feel more reassured if the transport is hefty enough to break my foot if dropped on it.

I have one of those little Sony Blu-Ray units temporarily plugged directly into the DAC inside a pair of Meridian DSP7000s and a very fine sound they make, too. But they feel so flimsy, and the mechanism is noisy (probably the bigger units damp the mechanical sound better).

Not entirely unscientific but…

Peter

[AJSki2fly]

Yep. I've not given up on the Levinson, the issue's around the DAC I think and a chip needs sourcing as a start point.
I'm browsing alternatives still though, and now thinking about maybe a Benchmark DAC3 based purely on reviews and forums.
Still no idea whether this running the Audiolab 6000 gets me to 390 quality.

You could consider this for an all in one box solution, not sure if it fits your budget though. they are rare and don't come up for sale often.

I have one and it produces some excellent musical renditions from CD and from a SACD it is just sublime(although some would argue SACD makes no difference). I also listen to a lot of vinyl but a good CD on the SA Pearl is right up there in terms of SQ. It is built like a tank and solid as a rock.

https://elektro.bazos.sk/inzerat/152...a-ki-pearl.php makes sure the seller has the remote control for if you consider it. EU1400 is about £1200 which is a reasonable price for one of these. I paid slightly less for mine but from a best friend.

I also use the internal DAC of the Pearl to in conjunction with a simple streaming solution RPI/HiFiBerry Digi+(modded) running Volumio with Qobuz, this produces very good results as well, as long as the digital streamed file is good, or the file of my NAS is CD quality or above.

[Macca]

@Macca,

I’m sure you are absolutely right in CDT terms, but I always feel more reassured if the transport is hefty enough to break my foot if dropped on it.

I have one of those little Sony Blu-Ray units temporarily plugged directly into the DAC inside a pair of Meridian DSP7000s and a very fine sound they make, too. But they feel so flimsy, and the mechanism is noisy (probably the bigger units damp the mechanical sound better).

Not entirely unscientific but…

Peter

Those are perfectly good reasons for wanting a fancy transport. It's why I've bought that TEAC. I'm not expecting it to offer some revolution in SQ over the Audiolab, there's no reason why it would.

[antonio]

what's 'quality' though? It's a transport, it's just sending out digital data. You'd be hard pressed to find a dedicated CD transport that couldn't do that perfectly.

Then why would we hear a difference between a Project RS box, CEC and Audio Note transports?

[Macca]

Then why would we hear a difference between a Project RS box, CEC and Audio Note transports?

It's possible to screw up digital data transmission but even then you've got the question as to whether its screwed up badly enough to be audible with music.

I hear a very small difference between my Oppo acting as a transport and my Audiolab transport but I think the most likely explanation is that it's in my mind.

Since I'm not going to go to the effort of a controlled (blind) comparison, or have them tested, I don't worry about it. It's not enough of a difference to matter to me in any case.

[ianlenco]

Have you thought about streaming? I moved away from a decent CD player a few years ago and would never go back. A monthly subscription to a service like Qobus gives you access to a huge amount of music for the price of one CD purchase a month. I have loads of CD's that I bought on the strength of one track only to find out the rest of the album was pretty weak. Auralic is one quality maker of DAC/streamers, there are others, and has a great interface for accessing music, making a list of favourites and playlists, reading artist biographies etc etc. Oh, and if you have CDs that are not listed on streaming services you can always rip them and stick them on a stick or hard disc.
With your budget I would say it is well worth considering.

[Kember]

Have you thought about streaming? I moved away from a decent CD player a few years ago and would never go back. A monthly subscription to a service like Qobus gives you access to a huge amount of music for the price of one CD purchase a month. I have loads of CD's that I bought on the strength of one track only to find out the rest of the album was pretty weak. Auralic is one quality maker of DAC/streamers, there are others, and has a great interface for accessing music, making a list of favourites and playlists, reading artist biographies etc etc. Oh, and if you have CDs that are not listed on streaming services you can always rip them and stick them on a stick or hard disc.
With your budget I would say it is well worth considering.

Before doing that, as the OP has a dac, he could experiment and just load the free Daphile streaming software onto just about any spare computer down to a £30 thin client like the Wyse DX0D and stream the output into a decent dac. It is based on the well-established Logitech Media Server platform and it supports DSD, can host Tidal, Qobuz and Spotify etc, has internet radio (including BBC Sounds) and it has cd ripping and tagging capability (either from the onboard dvd rom or with a usb add-on). It took me thirty minutes to load and configure. (It needs to be controlled from another computer or smartphone.)

Even easier to set up is the free and seriously excellent Hysolid software. Put in onto a spare pc as a top quality music player with an IOS control app, but it doesn’t stream iirc, so needs to be fed directly into a dac.

Peter