Is a Tube CD Palyer worth the investment?

[downtempotone]

A tube CD player almost seems like an oxymoron to me. I do have a Yakov Aronov tube power amp, which I love to death, but I am struggling with a CD "tube-based" player! How can a digital format hope to deliver the best sound quality to the analog world?

[topround]

Tube Dac's and CD players definetly help, at least good ones that were designed from the get go with tubes in the design.
I agree with you on the analogue take of a digital format, but for those with a strictly digital format the tubes will help get rid of some of the digital nastiness. CD's by nature are flawed, eventually computer audio will reach a level where digital will become more analogue sounding...
until then I spin records...life is too short to wait

[BobM]

Don't think of it as a "tube" or retro player. CD players basically have 4 important parts to them:

- the power supply
- the transport
- the digital conversion
- the signal output

Now, the digital conversion is all about modern technology, and different DAC chips do have a different character. A transport is what spins the disk and there are only so many mass market transports being made, so they are more or less ubiquitous. The power supply and output sections, however, are where you can implement old tried and true technology to good effect, including tube regulation or tube output buffers. Nothing wrong with that at all. In fact, making these last 2 sections beefy is generally what separates inexpensive and expensive components.

[sleepyguy24]

I think a tube dac would be a better bang for your buck and you have more flexibility. Some quality ones now are a bit wallet friendly and if they are not to your liking sound wise you can easily sell them. CD Transports aren't so pricey either. I'm really enjoying a Grant Fidelity DAC-09 with a Western Electric 396A tube in place of the stock one. At first the DAC 09 was in a mostly solid state system and it sounded good to me. When I swapped out my SS amp for a tube one the sound got even more pleasing. One of years I'll move up to one of those Eastern Electric Tube DACs.

[steve]

Why not get the signal directly from where the tube normally obtains its analog input. With a gain of two (only 6db), the stage is not worth much anyway.

If possible get output directly from dac output. (Of course output Z  and voltage protect.) The chips output Z is less than 10 ohms according to Burr people.

Easy to do, and better sound, depending upon the brand and value of the output caps used.

Cheers.

[BobM]

Steve,

On an inexpensive player I would definitely agree with you. Taking the signal right off the DAC board, running it through some 1uF coupling caps to the output RCA's is a great tweak, and I've done it in the past on some cheap DAC's and players.

However, a good output stage definitely beats this option hands down. Of course, it costs more to build a good output stage.

[steve]

Steve,

On an inexpensive player I would definitely agree with you. Taking the signal right off the DAC board, running it through some 1uF coupling caps to the output RCA's is a great tweak, and I've done it in the past on some cheap DAC's and players.

However, a good output stage definitely beats this option hands down. Of course, it costs more to build a good output stage.

Are you talking dac board, or dac chip? What brand player are you using with a 1uf output cap? I think we may be talking two different mods as a dac analog stage has problems, no matter the brand.

Something is amiss with a 1uf output capacitor.
 
One is losing 12% of the bass at 20hz, 6% at 40hz, 3%  at 80hz with a 100k load.

With 50k load, 24%, 12%, and 6% respectively,

With 25k load, 48%, 24%, and 12% at 80hz.  

As one can see, a 1uf creates some problems, or the analog stage has some severe problems.

Cheers.