I need some sage advice as to a difference in SQ I discovered this week by chance. I hadn't run a dedicated CD Transport in my rig for a long time and on a whim decided to get a cheap second hand CDP with a decent laser pick up and use as a transport to feed into my Beresford Bushmaster Dac, just to see how it sounded. My usual music set up was digital music files stored on a NAS - connected to MAC Mini running Audirvana+ - USB audio out via Musical Fidelity V Link 192 - to Gefen Audio extender over Cat5 - spdif coaxial from V Link 192 to Gefen to Beresford Dac - to Rotel pre/power amp - Monitor Audio speakers. I was already very happy with the SQ I was getting from this system, and ALAC and FLAC files sounded great. The Mac Mini is located in one room and the Dac /amp/CDP in another room. Gefen audio line via Ethernet Cat 5 is approx 5m.
But to my surprise when I put a Sony CDPCE245 5 disc player into the mix as a transport with digital Toslink connection to my DAC the SQ of the audio from the CDP was very very good and in fact smoked the digital files played on my Mac Mini. I even compared CD's that I had ripped to ALAC to playing direct through the Sony CDP and the CD Transport had way better SQ. More immersive, better soundstage, detail/clarity and bass response.
My question is why? I always thought that a ripped CD to ALAC or FLAC should give you the same SQ as a physical disc in a CDP, digits are just digits right? I checked the settings on my Mac Mini midi audio settings and made sure I was using the MF VLink at the correct BR and SF. But yes the good ol' Sony CDP sounded better then some of my so called high res files!
Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmm
Ideas welcome!