why does my old cd player sound better than my newer cd player going through my dac?

I can't avoid starting a war with this.  But here goes.

While a transport should be a transport should be a transport. they're not. Some are better at reading CDs than others, they do so with less errors meaning that less correction (digital patching-up) is needed. Dare I say it, I also suspect there's an element of 'player A' working better with 'DAC x' than 'player B', while 'player B' works better with 'DAC y', irrespective of how well each player reads the CD. I can't back-up any of this with technical proof, ABX tests and indisputable graphs, but it is one of those things which stands up to logical reason. It's another one of those reasons why there's no substitute for auditioning a new piece of kit with the gear you intend to mate it with.

I also believe different transports make a difference......so there's a couple of us.....three if you include Shooter.

+1 =4 (at least)

Hi there, well I'm not as experienced in Hi-fi as my friends here having only been into hi-fi for the past 8 years or so....I do want to share my epiphany with you. I once belonged to the "Dacs make all the difference and a transport has no effect" camp. However, as time passed I got to own better and better gear and my ears matured too (in a good way). It was only when I compared a marantz 5004 via dacmagic vs marantz cd63KI via dacmagic that I got to know how much difference a transport makes. The thing is that the digital signal is transferred to the dac but the transport producing the digital signal can be poorly implemented which causes a lot of problems (read error and jitter to name a few). The end result is disappointing sound quality. I am also a believer of having a better cdp than just trying to upgrade an existing cdp with a dac. Hope this helps!

My £10 Asus DVDRW reads audio CD's @ 40x standard speed with no errors. Really, not even the teeniest of errors.

So if anyones CD player is creating enough errors during a normal speed read to notice a difference in sound, I would suggest you dump that EDITED, as it clearly is not fit for purpose.

Errors my EDITED. This is the sort of thing WHF used to say before people got a clue.

Ah well we got this far down the page before the inevitable happened. That's really quite an achievement round here

People who know what they're talking about and whose living relies on designing HiFi systems say that the biggest weakness in a CD-based system is the CD and the process of reading it. By its nature, the process is inherrently error-prone. Linn have completely stopped making CD players: their streamers absolutely wiped the floor with their CD players no matter what DACs they put in them. If that has absolutely nothing to do with transports and reading discs because all transports are the same, perhaps you could tell us why it is?

And for the record, ripping a CD with a CD-ROM drive, which has the benefit of being able to make multiple attempts at reading data it didn't get right first time (you do have 'use error correction' ticked don't you?), is not remotely like a CD player, which is expected to do it all in real-time and can't go back and try again.

Nope, nope and nope. It doesn't do anything of the sort. No 'going back until it gets it right'. It's a straight read front to back. No 'error correction', just a straight read confirmed error free by comparing to multiple rips online.

And it is exactly like a CD player. MOST modern CD players have bog standard DVDRW drives / transport to cut costs.

Again, if a CD player is reading with errors, it isn't fit for purpose. Either that or learn to look after your discs a little better.

Doesn't itunes offer you the option of using error correction? what does this mean then?

Rather than adopt a 'nope, nope, nope' dismissive attitude, perhaps you'd care to answer the question I directed at you: if transports don't make a difference, why are streamers more or less accepted to be better at audio-reproduction than CDPs.

Oh and you're wrong again: tick 'error correction' and your CD ROM *WILL* have a go at re-reading parts of the disc. Reading discs IS an error-prone process. There's NOTHING you an do to guarantee it will be error-free. That's why CDPs have error-correction algorythms built in. Therefore, obviously some CDPs will be better at it than others, even if that variance is not consistent and varies from disc to disc.

Do your homework before you get all high and mighty with your dismissive attitudes where everyone who disagrees with you is a moron.

Well my Cd player doesn't miss a beat...... but then Philips made good transports didnt they?

I am dubious about transports affecting sound quality because either the transport reads the data correctly and sends it error free or it does not. If it has errors in it, how do those errors translate into worse SQ? Surely if there is an error it will appear as a click or buzz or indeed no sound at all? How can a transport read a CD such that the subsequent reading produces a worse bass, or weaker treble than another transport?

I think that one way that a transport may affect SQ is to do with volume. Could the Mission CDP in combination with the DAC be producing a slightly higher volume than the Rocksan? The ear can detect slight differences in volume and louder sounds better than quieter due to clarity and dynamics.

By who, you? Manufacturers who want to sell streamers? I stream myself, but for sheer convenience, not because it 'sounds better'.

I don't 'tick error correction' because I use a proper ripper, not iTunes.

Yes, and? Some read CDs as they were designed to do, and others, the type that read CDs so badly that it actually alteres the digital stream to the DAC to the point where the sound actually gets worse!? aren't fit for purpose, clearly. Any small errors will be corrected and will not affect sound quality. Bigger errors will not be corrected properly and you'll hear those as a click or a skip.

I've been doing my 'homework' for 25 years.

Why is ITunes not a proper ripper

Ok, it is a proper ripper, but other rippers guarantee a totally error free rip. iTunes cannot do that.

DBpoweramp, for example, will rip a track, compare that rip to an online database of error-free rips and if all's well, move on to the next. If there's errors (VERY RARE if you have a drive that does what it was designed to do) it will try another pass.

iTunes just doesn't give you this guarantee.

I had more success ripping with itunes than I did with DBpoweramp.

This all boils down to does anything affect sound quality when a signal is in a digitial form? I do not think anything does. When in a digital signal the music either gets through uncorrupted or it does not. We know the affects of a corrupted signal, clicks, pops, no signal at all. But there is nothing to say that there is a way of transmitting a digital signal that differes from another way such that one signal will have an improved SQ over the other.

It all happens when the signal goes into analoge and hiots the speakers, that is where we get differences in SQ.