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Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it.

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RE: New to DACs here...for better sound, get better CD player, or get a DAC for current player?

Long story short, yes an external DAC attached to your BDP-83 may yield a significant improvement, but the magnitude of improvement depends on your cable and DAC design.

As a general rule, when comparing the jitter levels from SPDIF via coaxial vs HDMI, HDMI typically has much higher levels of jitter. The bandwidth is also limited if you don't select Pure Audio mode which minimizes the video content of the bitstream.

Part of the reason you were blown away by the PC based system was that the jitter levels are likely to be much lower than when spinning a disc and transmitting via an already jittery interface, although we can't rule out that the receiver DAC may not be that good and that jitter has nothing to do with the improvement you heard!

There are proprietary strategies to achieve good jitter performance via HDMI (all of which involve reclocking), but generally require a matching transport to the receiver - Sony have HATS and Pioneer had their own version too.
The exception to this are the NAD DACs that have a low jitter HDMI interface: NAD M12, M51 or C510, because the reference video clock of 108MHz is the same clock used for the audio data decoding. The HDMI data can therefore be reclocked to the internal master clock before conversion.

As a transport, the BDP-83 will still do a very good job as a disc spinner.

I have personal experience of the M51 and have compared SPDIF interface via reference master clock and the HDMI input using an Oppo 103 as the source for discs and playback of digital files. Compared to my reference CD transport, the Oppo 103 via reclocked SPDIF is every bit as good. Via HDMI, there is a marginal reduction in the soundstage depth and slightly reduced sonic "acuity", but the difference is marginal despite the huge cost difference and complexity of the SPDIF reclocking (using the master clock) involved between the two.
The Oppo 103 has 2x HDMI outputs, one of each can be configured purely for audio (which is what I use for convenience).
Regards Anthony

"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats

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