I have a Uniti Atom and use Roon for my CD Library - all FLAC files - played via a Mac Mini and stream via Qobuz.
I also use iPhone and iPad as remotes.
There is a HiFaceTWO DAC connected to the USB on the mini and then an SPDIF cable connected to the SPDIF input on the Atom.
I was (??) considering getting a CD transport as I do like actually playing the CD’s sometimes and was considering Audiolab and Cambridge Audio ones.
Then I found an old SuperDrive that I used to rip (with DBPoweramp) the CD’s originally.
I played a CD through this and it sounded really good.
Would a dedicated CD transport be a better option?
It is a CD transport. If it is one of those units with slot loading and no eject button, a somewhat saner design with a tray and buttons might be a bit more convenient, but they will all sound exactly the same.
@Boris_Molodyi - I understand and agree and it sounds quite good but I’m wondering if other members might think say an Audiolab one might sound better.
How are you playing the CD – is it through the Music app on the Mac Mini? A consideration is what kind of playing experience you want. Do you want to load a disc and press the Play button, or go to your computer station and control it from an app? A SuperDrive doesn’t even have an Eject button (you need to do it from the computer).
In my opinion a CD drive which is controlled via the computer does not make any sense when the FLAC files are available.
To use a stand alone CD player with digital out or a dedicated transport can make sense when you like to use CDs.
With respect to sound I would not expect to much of a difference but offers may differ in this opinion.
If using the same DAC there most likely will be no difference, or SuperDrive might be better because the only output it has, USB, does not have any audio signal jitter, while dedicated audio CD transports tend to also have various S/PDIF outputs (or, God forbid, I2S) that do have jitter (although even that is normally inaudible)…
I thank members for their comments and may just take the ‘sensible’ approach and stream the FLAC files - once ripped from the SuperDrive/DbPoweramp - rather than look to sometimes play the CD’s.
That probably is the most sensible thing. The only slightly sensible reason I can think of for using a dedicated CD player for anything SQ-related is if you have some good HDCD recordings, and also a good player with full HDCD decoding that can’t be connected to Roon in any other way…
They can… but not completely, some parts of HDCD coding has never been reverse-engineered, and alas, Microsoft so far hasn’t seen it fit to open-source it. So yes, you can get (technically, it’s 20 bits) a closer to the original intent file using some of the existing HDCD decoders, but not everything that the original Pacific Microsonics decoder would do (or those versions of WMP that had it built-in).
Yes, I know, it’s the one most of the existing tools use. AFAIK it only does peak/gain part of HDCD, not the super-duper-proprietary filters (assuming the recording was made using them, of course, which not all HDCD disks were).
There are no signal optimized (i.e. steady state vs transient) variable digital filters in HDCD decoding, only in encoding. Both encoding and decoding were part of the HDCD original plan, reportedly, but the playback side already was patented, Meitner, I think.
I like the tactile experience of playing CD’s as well. Just the same as playing old vinyl records or cassettes. I never threw my old stuff away. My experience is that in certain situations, for example, towards the end of a well-oiled gathering, changing CDs is all that any one close to my age can manage with any reliability TBH.
My own experience is also that I really cannot hear the difference between several old CD / SACD / Blue Ray players on coax digital out to the same DAC(s) I use for streaming. This is actually a fixed configuration I like to use to even pre-process for room correction so everything just sounds the same by design.
I found this 3 part youtube very interesting where hidden in there towards the end there is the conclusion that no one could hear the difference between widely differing CD transports both in terms of vintage and cost if they went through the same DAC. That included using an old CD Walkman as a CD transport.
Maybe… Everything I read about it says that there is one piece of complete HDCD reconstruction (albeit not always actually used when recording, so it does not even matter all the time) that still is only known to PMD/Microsoft…
No, you may be confusing this with the “fake” HDCD contention. Because many, if not most discs carrying the HDCD logo (or even those “secret” discs without logo) do not require any decoding, as they do not utilize any HDCD signal enhancements. They simply were recorded, transferred, or processed with Pacific Microsonics studio equipment, which automatically inserted HDCD flags in the LSB. Decoding those “fake” discs does nothing but attenuate levels by 6 dB.
As I recall, PMD ADCs were regarded as the best available at the time, and while 16 bits might be quite sufficient, theoretically, having some extra (HDCD is supposed to be ~equivalent to 20 bits) depth was helpful when most DACs wouldn’t actually resolve all of their 16 bits (most properly audiophile ones can’t to this day, of course…).
