In article
,
D.M. Procida wrote:
Jim Lesurf wrote:

Now that the contents of a CD can be held in RAM, never mind in
other cheaper and still very fast digital storage, what does an
expensive CD player offer that a cheap transport and a decent
digital-to-analog converter cannot?

It plays a CD. Useful for people that have them and either can't, or
don't, want to have to rip them all, etc. Given this, up to them to
decide which one they prefer, I assume.

If DAC products can buffer seconds' or even minutes' worth of data,
and can stream it out to the actual DAC circuitry with GHz
precision, there doesn't seem to be much need any more for costly CD
players.

Am I missing something?

That 'DAC' and 'CD Player' aren't synonyms? :-)

I don't think you understand my question.

Well, I answered the question you actually asked. But perhaps not one the
wanted answered. :-)

You can play a CD perfectly well in a very cheap transport;

Can you? Is this "perfectly" so for *all* such "cheap" transports playing
*every* Audio CD. If so, odd, that I've found some CDs that don't play
correctly in some players whilst doing so in others.

all you need to do is stream the data to a DAC, and as long as you have
a buffer (cheap) that can ensure the bits arrive without timing
irregularities (also cheap), you have something that's limited only by
the quality of the DAC.

You missed out a few points.

Firstly, that means you need a DAC. If someone chooses a CD Player that
comes in the box already, so saves the user from needing another box, with
yet more PSU, metalwork, etc.

I'm not comparing DACs and CD players. I'm asking what *expensive* CD
players are supposed to offer.

You'd have to investigate that example by example. Some may just look nice,
others may do something interesting or useful. I'm not sure there is any
global answer that applies in every case.

Jim

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