plonk

Thanks for all of the comments and suggestions. Let me address them as best I can: The Musical Fidelity V-DAC outboard DAC absolutely sounds great when I hook it up my Sony ES 400 disk changer. It is well worth the $299 I spent. When I hook it up to the WDTV thru my Seagate hard drive with the 1800 CDs, the V-DAC also makes a huge improvement. So I am ruling out the V-DAC is the problem. The Sony ES alone using its internal DAC still sounds better than the WDTV thru the V-DAC. The sound is not bad; just definitely better quality thru the CD player. I am confident with my ripping strategy as I am fairly computer savvy, worked for HP and Compaq for 12 years. There are no volume controls on the V-DAC, Seagate external drive or the WDTV that I can find. So, I am leaning towards the thought that the WDTV may not be of the quality standards that most of you are used to. It does not have asynchronous USB when I understand could make a difference. Does anyone feel if the SqueezeBox is that much better than a WDTV, or maybe I should spend more $ for something that offers the asynchronous USB? Again, thanks for the support!

Thanks for all of the quick responses! My WD TV is Generation 1 and has the latest firmware update 1.03.01. It does not upsample to my knowledge. The Musical Fidelity V-Dac does upsample to 24 bit, 192kHz. It received very good review at $299. Do you think that is part of the problem? Thanks again,

I have about 1800 CDs stored on an external Seagate 1.5TB drive in uncompressed AIFF or WAV formats. The sound is good on my high end home theater system, but not as good as CDs. My set up is: Seagate external drive thru a Kimber USB to a WDTV, then optical cable to a Musical Fidelity V-DAC digital to anaolog converter, then Audioquest analog cables to my system. The sound is good, but not as good as just playing CDs thru a 400 CD changer. Can anyone suggest what I am doing wrong? My home system is high-end with Martin Logan speakers, separate components, all Audioquest cables, etc. I was expecting the digital sound to be a little closer to the pure CDs. I am relatively new to the digital audiophile world and was hoping to receive some advice. I did not find anything on this in searching the forums. Thanks